Umbral

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Just to put this in perspective /ment has a 3750 point dot attack that does not need aim or build up and takes 1.33 seconds to cast. Nothing on the scrapper side or any other blaster secondary comes close

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Too bad it's -regen not actual damage. -Regen is only great in the absence of other people to help you attack and other -regen. Dropping regen below 0% doesn't make the target start losing health.

The issue with DPS calculations in general is that they're built around dealing damage, not functional damage (which would include -regen effects), at least where Blasters, Scrappers, and Tankers are concerned. Defenders and Controllers generally scale up a bit simply because that's the single largest contributive power they've got at their disposal for the purposes of EB/AV/GM soloing and, because of it, makes them disproportionately effective against those targets while less effective against all others.

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I had a short exchange with Arcanaville concerning something along this lines (I'm reasonably sure that she ended it in disgust, but I was just arguing because I like arguing).

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Actually, my last response to you went unanswered. If you'll recall, your last question to me revolved around whether I intended to expand on the amount of debuffing that the damage mitigation spreadsheet included, and I responded that it was unlikely I was going to add very sophisticated debuff computations, as they would have made an already borderline spreadsheet too unwieldy.

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Eh, I was pretty sure I sent you a PM back actually detailing why I think it's important, but that's what I get for sending another PM rather than just using the reply function (which I really wish would allow for better quoting...).

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If the Eclipse name is taken by a power, well, I can't think of anything.

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Eclipse is the name of the tier 9 in the Warshade secondary. It's a PBAoE drain power that adds resistance for every foe hit. Kind of like an enemy fueled Unstoppable. (something I wish they'd done with Dark Armor)

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I could always just be called "Penumbra" or "Penumbral Surge". The penumbra is the darkened area between a complete area of darkness and an illuminated area. The umbra is itself simply the shadow.

This discussion simply serves to heighten my wrath for the devs stealing my name for the Warshade powersets and causing so many people to start stealing my names! I curse you Cryptic Studios!

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And yet, I've seen builds for /regen AV soloers. I don't personally build to solo AV's, but I know it can be done. Here's my thoughts on it.

Regen has no built in mitigation to improve via IO set bonues and pool powers? Try regeneration. Sure using sets to boost regen may not work for it, but try tacking on defense. Just messing around, I did pretty good with a build using combat jumping and maneuvers to raise ranged and aoe defense (ignoring melee defense). I ended with 30% or so in each. And that was a build designed with keeping recharge slotting up there, as well as ensuring damage dealing powers were well slotted for acc/damage.

Someone who wanted to could probably cobble together a build for regen with 25 to 30% melee, ranged, and aoe defense. It's not soft capped, but with high regen rates it wouldn't have to be. It'd just have to slow down incoming damage. Outside of one shot kills, I don't see the problem here. And if your trying for defense, you probably racked up some resistances too. That lessens the chance of one shot deaths. As does having dull pain.

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Madam, you do realize that I am one of those very same */regen AV soloers that has 30% +def to all values and an optimized attack string? I can make my case from a very strong place: I'm one of the few that actually does it. I know it's few because I've had more */regens than I can count ask me how I do it. They've copied by build and still had problems because their skill couldn't make up for it.

As to the SOs only as a balance consideration question, the powersets are also balanced exclusive of pool powers. It's not just an issue of */regen getting less from IOs than anyone else (and this is true, if you think getting 20% +regen when you're already packing 600% +regen is actually worth it, you're hallucinating, especially when you're packing no mitigation to multiply it). */Regen also gets less from all of the pool powers that exist. Everyone else has access to a substantive self heal, though it's harder to use, and low value +def, low value specialized +res. None of those are as useful to a build that is built around damage recovery rather than mitigation. Community damage mitigation resources have to be set low because they're built around keeping mitigation sets from being completely overpowered. Without factoring in IOs at all, */Regen falls behind all of the other sets when you start adding in the Fighting Pool, and Fitness Pool. Fire and Shield start becoming better survivability sets when you actually factor in pool powers, and they're both supposed to have sub-standard survivability to account for their additional offensive capabilities, which, going by basic design, is actually supposed to be more costly to the powerset than if gotten through an outright damage powerset.

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crits are part of their damage output. Over time it averages out.

Unless you mean because pylons are AV? class so scrappers crit more against them than say minions?

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From what I've been able to infer, the enemy ranks actually have a value of some kind. Minion and Underling are low and Lt, Boss, AV, EB, pylon, Reichsman, etc are higher. Scrappers have the higher crit rate (generally 10% compared to 5%) against anything above Minion or underling. Honestly, I've always found it perfectly serviceable to use the 10% crit rate or the "averaged" 7-8% crit rate when calculating DPS mainly because minions aren't really much of a threat and die so quickly any ways.

Keep in mind that most Scrappers use pylon soloing times as a DPS comparison within the confines of the AT.

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BFR is already huge burst damage, with a long animation, actually. Thing nearly does as much damage as BIB, just a long animation.

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47.71 is nearly as much as 82.42? Really? What metric of comparison are you using there?

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I am an avid regeneration scrapper player and was thinking about a small buff to regeneration in the form of recharge debuff resistance and regeneration debuff resistance.

[/ QUOTE ]People that solo AVs need buffs.

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Because we know of so many */regens that solo AVs compared to the vast hordes of */SRs, */SDs, */WPs, and */Invulns. Of the actual AV soloers, */regen is probably the worst suited for it because it doesn't really have any internal damage mitigation to make better via IOs and pool powers.

I had a short exchange with Arcanaville concerning something along this lines (I'm reasonably sure that she ended it in disgust, but I was just arguing because I like arguing). The main problem with */regens performance when including IO sets and pool powers is that it operates using a completely different mechanism than every other set out there. No other defensive set is so heavily based around using damage recovery and virtually ignoring damage mitigation. Every other set out there (*/wp included) is actually based heavily around using mitigation with a very small amount of damage recovery. Because of the multiplicative effects of mitigation (re: every additional degree of defense or resistance you get, it's resisting proportionately more than the previous quantities you got), all pool and IO set mitigation bonuses have to be small so as not to be completely overpowered (assuming that the current state of defense and resistance IO set bonuses are balanced in the first place). Because of the interaction of mitigation and recovery (re: mitigation allows recovery to act on proportionately smaller amounts of incoming damage, functionally multiplying the effect of the recovery by the inverse of the mitigation), the recovery has to be kept small so as to not be completely overpowered. All of this adds up to */regen being a decent performer compared to the other power sets under non-pool, SO level comparisons but fall behind in IO and full build comparisons. The pool and IO contributions to damage recovery are paltry in comparison to what */regen is capable of doing natively and their contributions to mitigation are based around providing support to the existing sources of mitigation that the other sets have in order to actually generate appreciable increases. */Regen is pretty much screwed over by the basic balance setup of the game and the fact that it operates in a manner completely unlike any other set out there.

I heartily support this idea, having been saying it myself since the addition of merit rewards. Personally, I think that TF difficulty should be done at the start of the TF along with all of the other challenge settings (allowing the difficulty to remain the same even if the leader d/cs), rather than following and specific character difficulty assignment. The advantage is that it allows the TF to check against itself that the difficulty has remained the same throughout the entire TF (if it didn't the power players would simply run through all but the last on heroic and then crank it to Invinc for the extra merits).

The big problem with using challenge settings as a method for acquiring more merits is that it would require a lot of data mining and number screwery, not to mention that there would be a huge debate on whether the merits would need to be increased on a percent basis (10% more merits) or on a flat number basis (+5 merits). Especially where the time challenges are concerned, there would need to be a lot of testing to determine set numbers for the TF itself. If the times remained the same, some TFs would be utterly pointless to run on Gold (Dr. Q anyone? Bronze would be a stretch for that one...) while others would have no real challenge (Katie and Eden on Gold Medal are pretty much gimmes).

My personal series of recommendations are as follows:

Make the click animations for */regen the absolute lowest tier where animations are concerned. If you're doing absolutely anything else except for standing there, they shouldn't animate. Anything should be able to suborn the precious animations seconds. Forcing a */regen to use up .924 seconds for Reconstruction and Dull Pain, 1.32 seconds for Instant Healing, and 2.772 seconds for Moment of Glory, especially considering how often their used mid-combat is disproportionately costly in terms of animation time, especially compared to every other secondary set out there that has, at most, 1 click power that is used for normal survivability.

Give */regen some -heal, -recharge, and -regen resistance. I don't care whether they're put into Fast Healing, Quick Recovery, Integration or Resilience (my vote would be to put all three of them into Resilience to actually make it a halfway desirable power; as it stands, it's less useful than Temperature Protection). -Heal and -regen resist aren't really altogether needed for all but a very minute number of situations, but, considering how fundamental */regen's heals and passive regeneration are to it's survival, I'd consider them needed, at least in a symbolic sense, much like */WP. The big one that's needed though, thanks to the evolution of */regen from a toggle set to a click set, is -recharge resist. Any -recharge resist would need to be significantly more than any other set out at the moment in my opinion. If the basic "the more it affects the set, the more the set can resist it" metric is applied, */regen should get at least 50% -recharge resist (-move and so forth wouldn't really need to be included). */Invuln, */SR, */SD, and */Fire all get various amounts of recharge resistance and each of them only has a single inherent survival power that is actually recharge dependent (Dull Pain, Practiced Brawler, Active Defense, and Healing Flames respectively). As previously stated, */Regen has 4. */Invuln and */Fire both get 20%. */SD gets 30%. */SR gets 40%. */Regen should get at least 50%, though I wouldn't be adverse to 60% or higher (or possibly just have it be 30% but increasable via slotting).

Remove or shrink the delays on all of the powers. It's only noticeable whenever you're playing on the knife's edge, but getting killed right after clicking Dull Pain (or Recon) because the heal didn't arrive fast enough but the power's activation did is aggravating beyond belief.

Give Instant Healing some kind of self heal component. Considering it's recharge, uptime, and thematic effect, it would make sense for Instant Healing to, at the very least, have a Reconstruction level heal in order to provide instantaneous damage recovery followed by the huge +regen boost. IH is one of the few "tier 9" class powers I know of that is generally activated when outside of a dangerous situation because it doesn't really do much to get you out of one: it just helps you recover from them faster. Giving it a heal would actually make it a bit more useful as a real emergency power.

Modify the +regen components of Integration and Instant Healing so that they actually respond to healing enhancements decently. Instant Healing is in the worst need of this because it's nearly pointless to slot it for +heal since the actual effect is tiny, but both of them would respond well to actually having the [Ignores Enhancements & Buffs] tag removed from those portions so that it's actually fully worth it to enhance them. RttC is much bigger than Integration and isn't hobbled by castrated enhancements.

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I know that Regeneration can, if played correctly, be the most powerful scrapper secondary in the game.

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Please, show me this. Really. I want to see you demonstrate to me that */regen can actually be made to be more effective than softcapped */SR, */Invuln, */WP or any one of the other secondaries that regularly manages to generate better average performance in game as well as in spreadsheets. I'm very curious to see this.

I'm one of the few non-sword/Regens that has managed to complete the RWZ challenge. Show me an MA/Regen or a Fire/Regen that is, through sheer player skill rather than outright character disparity, capable of outsurviving every other secondary over the long term.

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However that isn't good enough for me. I've noticed that it has one minor weakness, and instead of taking the time to cover that weakness with IOs, like every other armor set in the entire game has to, I'd prefer if you just changed the set so that Regeneration has no weaknesses whatsoever.

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Like I said in my previous post, like regen is packing so much actual damage mitigation that it would completely imbalance it? The entire crux of the issue is that every other set with a similar weakness to a specific debuff is given the ability to resist that debuff to such an extent that it's no long quite such a big contributor to death. The fact that the debuff is present in noticeable quantities shouldn't mean that it's impossible to play the character.

Something else to remember: */regen has no native defense to actually avoid debuffs like most other sets do. It and */Fire are the only sets that actually get hit by virtually every effect aimed at them because they're incapable of dodging them reliably.

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Dear Castle,

Please give every single armor set every form of mitigation because there can't be any type of weakness.

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Because */regen is packing so much damage mitigation in Resilience and MoG. Loads of sustained defense and resistance there, right? Please, please , try to at least know what you're talking about before you make a comment.

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Seriously, the set if fine the way it is. Your going to face enemies that counteract the effectiveness of your armors. That's life.

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It's not an issue of facing an enemy that reduces the effect of your armors (since regen doesn't actually have any armors), it's an issue of not having a fundamental defensive structure that every other armor set has. */Regen is the only set without any debuff resistance which is completely out of place since it is actually affected by some specific debuffs to a similar extent as */SR was before it received recharge debuff resistance. */SR wasn't hurt until it started getting hit, at which point it falls over rather quickly. */Regen is the same way with -recharge. It's not hurt by -recharge until it actually starts getting hit and then burns its recharge powers, at which point it's screwed.

Every other armor set has a method to decrease the effect of debuffs on its powers. Resistance itself resists resistance debuffs. Virtually all +def powers grant +def resistance to go along with it. */Invuln, */SR, */SD and */Fire all get recharge debuff resistance even though it largely serves only to provide a greater offensive resilience because recharge isn't used for survivability by those sets (less true for */Fire than the others b/c it gets Healing Flames). */Regen lives off of recharge: Instant Healing, Dull Pain, Reconstruction, and Moment of Glory. Fast Healing and Resilience add a rather paltry amount of additional survivability (especially Resilience, dear god). Integration is the only "real" survivability that you'll be able to dance around with when you're tagged with load upon load of -recharge, and that's less powerful than RttC. */Regen lives based on how fast it can recharge it's powers.

Honestly, I don't think Santorican really identified all of the problems with */regen that prevent it from actually performing as well as it should (meaning that it shouldn't take a top tier player to get a similar level of performance as any well slotted other build gets).

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I'm not so sure it would though. Assuming they used fairly simple RGB color values with 256 values for each color, that's only 3 bytes to describe the color. Double that to 6 if we can use 2 colors. A character gets 24 powers, so that's only 144 bytes to describe the colors for each and every power (2 colors each) that that character has. That means you could store color data for over 7200 characters in 1MB of data. Although I'm not so sure what kind of identifying data they would need to tie the color to the power it's supposed to go with, so that might add more data. I'm not sure how many characters exist in CoH at the moment, but most of them wouldn't be taking up the memory for the full 24 powers, since only characters level 49 and higher would have all 24, and some (a lot?) characters will certainly be left with the default power colors. I also don't know what kind of storage space the CoH servers have, but I would think it's quite a bit, and the color data would be a fairly small fraction overall.

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The big issue isn't the size of the transfer alone. With MMOs it's generally not the issue. It's more often an issue of the sheer number of transfers that have to take place for the server. Every time you make an attack, the server would have to load up from you and give that info to everyone that can see you. It's also got to do the same thing for everyone that the you can see.

Think of how little space we get with AE for individual missions. It's just like that. What may seem like a tiny increase to you is actually a rather huge increase when you consider multiplying it over a large number of users.

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Despite my complete lack of knowledge about computer coding, I'm going to try to sound like I do know something about it here, so if I embarrass myself, please feel free to point and laugh.

It seems to me like when they changed things to add color tinting, they would have had to add a place in the code where it looks for the custom color you created to make the power that color. It also doesn't seem like too much of a stretch to imagine that they could easily have it look in a separate place, with a separate color for each power. I can't imagine that a single entry for the color of a power could be that large (heck, it could probably even be stored locally, so storage size wouldn't be that big of an issue).

I guess what I'm getting at here, is that it doesn't seem like it would be much more difficult to give us the ability to color tint each individual power, rather than the powerset as a whole.

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The issue I have with this is that it could easily get rather unwieldy. Storing all power customization locally might serve to deal with the issue to some degree, but it would make the the process of determining what another player's attack look like take a longer (because you would have to upload your colors to the server so that it can be given to everyone else) so it would probably be more efficient to simply store those variables on the server if color customization is meant to be visible to other players.

The other issue I can think of that might impact the ability to customize powers independently is that, if power customization is a property of the costume generator (which is where I'm putting my money), unless the devs add more costume option slots (there are only a certain number of specific costume options that are open; Weapon Customization actually ate up one), there aren't going to be enough for each power taken to be given a custom color.

Personally, I'm expecting the color customization to allow for color customization of your primary and color customization of the secondary. Possible additions for APP/PPP are possible, but I doubt it. Depending on whether the color saturation mechanism is changed, we'll either get a single color option or two color options. The single color option would most likely extend about as far as being able to change the base color (Energy Blast becomes any/white rather than blue/white or red/white) without having large effect on the shading beyond the simple additive change (using a darker base causes the second half of the color to be commensurately darker; Energy Blast would then have LightBlue/White, MediumBlue/Light Blue, DarkBlue/MediumBlue, MidnightBlue/DarkBlue as the blue series color options depending on what initial color you picked). The dual color option, which would require some coding workarounds and tweaks to the graphics engine itself, would simply allow you to pick both the primary and secondary color for the power set in question (Energy Blast could be White/Black, Green/Yellow, etc; re: the two colors would not have to be even remotely similar).

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Now that we are at it whats the best way to get some debuff resists, since that seems to be where we truly are weak.
I had some fights where i use mog and instant heal, but because of a few recharges debuff i never got more than 1 chain of attack off

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I've sent Castle a number of pms concerning */regens lack of debuff resistance (which makes it unique among defensive sets for this very reason), and the degree to which it is as weak to said debuffs to a similar degree as */SR was prior to receiving its defense debuff resistances. I never got a tell back, so all I know is that he at least opened it (I got a read receipt for it).

Personally, I think Castle just doesn't like */regen. It's definitely a set that doesn't fit within the traditional confines of any other set being both reactive/clicky in it's method of execution and concerned almost exclusively with damage recovery rather than damage mitigation in it's actual implementation, which means that it doesn't respond in a similar manner where spreadsheets and the other traditional forms of power set comparisons are concerned. He made */wp, which pretty much does everything that */regen does only with toggles, so that it doesn't take up animation time (which is the primary problem I have with all of the spreadsheets concerned with cross set analysis), and has debuff resistances to balance out the lack of click capabilities (which doesn't make much sense from where I'm standing), which is apparently a weakness (considering */SD and */SR, I'm not seeing that as being a weakness).

I'm not even bothering to expect any substantive changes to */regen any more. It's an adequate performer where spreadsheets are concerned (which apparently means that it shouldn't get looked at at all even if, as far as I'm concerned, the spreadsheets are only accurate for a very specific type of play that discounts the obvious human element), even though, in my personal experience where most actual intelligent people are concerned, it actually falls behind most other sets within the confines of the basic survivability heuristic. Most of this is due to the fact that the effectiveness of */regen is heavily influenced by the actual skill of the player which should mean, in my opinion, that the average player will see slightly worse but roughly equivalent performance to the other pure survivability sets (re: not */FA or */SD) when using it but better performance when used by a skilled user. Where it stands now, it's actually rather poor when used by the average user and roughly on par when used by a skilled user. Of course, this is heavily influenced by what you think the average user is actually capable of doing and how important quick reaction and power effect delays are (or whether they should be factored in at all).

I think it's rather telling of the comparative state of */regen that you won't find nearly as many of them hanging around as you used to. Most players interested in playing */regen I see nowadays would rather adopt the old "set and forget" play style with */wp (and achieving similar if not higher levels of survivability without the actual loss of animation time or requisite player skill) rather than having to deal with the way that current */regen plays. Players as a whole may be rather inept in actually determining the comparative strength of power sets but the fact that regen is viewed by the devs as being of similar strength even though they ignore the additional unrewarded costs that the players actually use as a reason to not play the set might actually be a reason to trust the general shift in player mentality where the set is itself concerned. While I still see a few */regens around, I see almost no new */regens that actually stick around past their low 20s. Virtually all of those I see at respectable levels are old guard */regen that play on either because they remember what it was like back in the old days (which I have a feeling that Castle is unduly afraid of returning to if any large scale changes were actually enacted) or because they actually enjoy the reactive and intense nature of the set as it stands now (even though it's infinitely easier to achieve the desired level of survivability through other secondary sets).

Here's a Kat/Regen build I put together for someone sometime ago, but more recently than Werner has put together his build. It does most of the things that Werner suggested except that I've never really thought much of the Leadership pool on Scrappers.

Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1.401
http://www.cohplanner.com/

[u]Click this DataLink to open the build![u]

+def concept: Level 50 Magic Scrapper
Primary Power Set: Katana
Secondary Power Set: Regeneration
Power Pool: Leaping
Power Pool: Fighting
Power Pool: Speed
Power Pool: Concealment

Hero Profile:
Level 1: Gambler's Cut -- Hectmb-Dmg/Rchg(A), Hectmb-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(3), Hectmb-Acc/Rchg(3), Hectmb-Dmg/EndRdx(5), Hectmb-Dam%(5), Achilles-ResDeb%(42)
Level 1: Fast Healing -- RgnTis-Regen+(A)
Level 2: Flashing Steel -- Oblit-Dmg(A), Oblit-Acc/Rchg(7), Oblit-Dmg/Rchg(9), Oblit-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(9), Oblit-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(11), Oblit-%Dam(46)
Level 4: Reconstruction -- Dct'dW-EndRdx/Rchg(A), Dct'dW-Heal/Rchg(11), Dct'dW-Heal/EndRdx/Rchg(13), Dct'dW-Heal(13), Dct'dW-Rchg(15)
Level 6: Quick Recovery -- P'Shift-End%(A), P'Shift-EndMod(7), EndMod-I(48)
Level 8: Divine Avalanche -- Mako-Dam%(A), Mako-Dmg/EndRdx(17), Mako-Dmg/Rchg(19), Mako-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg(19), Mako-Acc/Dmg(21), Mako-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(21)
Level 10: Combat Jumping -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A), LkGmblr-Def(43), Zephyr-Travel(50), Zephyr-Travel/EndRdx(50), Zephyr-ResKB(50)
Level 12: Dull Pain -- Dct'dW-EndRdx/Rchg(A), Dct'dW-Heal/Rchg(23), Dct'dW-Heal/EndRdx/Rchg(23), Dct'dW-Heal(25), Dct'dW-Rchg(25)
Level 14: Super Jump -- Zephyr-Travel(A), Zephyr-ResKB(15), Zephyr-Travel/EndRdx(27)
Level 16: Integration -- Numna-Heal/EndRdx(A), Numna-Regen/Rcvry+(17), Numna-Heal(27)
Level 18: The Lotus Drops -- Oblit-Dmg(A), Oblit-Acc/Rchg(31), Oblit-Dmg/Rchg(33), Oblit-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(33), Oblit-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(33), Oblit-%Dam(34)
Level 20: Boxing -- Amaze-Stun(A), Amaze-Stun/Rchg(34), Amaze-Acc/Stun/Rchg(36), Amaze-Acc/Rchg(36), Amaze-EndRdx/Stun(36)
Level 22: Tough -- Aegis-ResDam/EndRdx(A), Aegis-ResDam/Rchg(37), Aegis-ResDam/EndRdx/Rchg(37), Aegis-ResDam(37), Aegis-Psi/Status(39)
Level 24: Weave -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A), LkGmblr-Def(39)
Level 26: Soaring Dragon -- Mako-Acc/Dmg(A), Mako-Dmg/EndRdx(39), Mako-Dmg/Rchg(40), Mako-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg(40), Mako-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(40), Mako-Dam%(42)
Level 28: Instant Healing -- Dct'dW-EndRdx/Rchg(A), Dct'dW-Rchg(29), Dct'dW-Heal/EndRdx/Rchg(29), Dct'dW-Heal(31), Dct'dW-Heal/Rchg(42)
Level 30: Hasten -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(31), RechRdx-I(34)
Level 32: Golden Dragonfly -- Armgdn-Dam%(A), Armgdn-Dmg/Rchg(45), Armgdn-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(45), Armgdn-Acc/Rchg(46), Armgdn-Dmg/EndRdx(46)
Level 35: Stealth -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A)
Level 38: Moment of Glory -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A), RechRdx-I(43), RechRdx-I(48)
Level 41: Build Up -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(43)
Level 44: Super Speed -- Zephyr-Travel(A), Zephyr-Travel/EndRdx(45), Zephyr-ResKB(48)
Level 47: Invisibility -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A)
Level 49: Resilience -- S'fstPrt-ResDam/Def+(A)
------------
Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Critical Hit

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You know, for a top 10 (last I checked) MMO, you'd think enough people play the game

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That's because no one plays any MMO except for WoW anymore. Didn't you know?

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As far as I recall, FF doesn't give psi defense at all. Granted, many psi powers are also ranged, melee, or aoe flagged so that's less of an issue. But back to the topic of not wanting buffs, there are legitimate reasons. RP can be one, and people aren't required to give a reason when they ask not to be buffed.

I know my WS once got an empath to go "WTF?!" when I asked not to be healed unless critical. They understood part way into the mission, but they still didn't understand me NOT wanting healing.

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Dispersion Bubble provides psi defense, but Deflection Shield and Insulation Shield don't.

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Dispersion Bubble: +def(all types, melee, ranged, aoe)

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And Trout Defence sucks, because the scales obscure your costume, and the smell induces nausea in people with medical conditions.

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And it induces new medical conditions in those without them currently.

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I would have to say Electric is the least played here but the other 3 are not fair behind in rarity.

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Electric support is probably the least played simply because it doesn't exist.

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OOOHH! I know! Just use Martial Arts, but add 'Animation Customization' to the game with the upcoming power customization. Give us a variety of animations to pick from for each power.

*runs away in fear of BABs aggro*

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You know, I've always been curious about this. I've gotten what amounts to conflicting information from what I've read from the devs, though it could easily be thanks to some of the ambiguous terms the devs have a habit of using.

I recall BABs saying that it's actually possible to speed up an animation by simply changing the animation time that is allotted for it, which would imply that, if there were some code work done to split the animation time and specific animation, it would be possible to choose one of a set of animations (or any power for that matter) for a power. I also recall BABs suggesting elsewhere that it's not possible to do this because animation times are somewhat baked in to the animation itself and, in order to do things as previously described, would require a degree of hard coding rather than variable swapping.

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People who argue against Psi Melee as a represented Superhero power have evidently never heard of Psylocke. who is, coincidentally, my favorite Marve character ever.

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The big question I've always had concerning Psychic Melee (which it's the only real elemental melee set we're missing now; Sonic Melee is a possible addition, though less likely) is whether it will be along the lines of Psylocke with the blades of manifested mental energy/condensed telekinetic force or more along the lines of the existing melee psychic powers in game. Either would be awesome, and I have no real opinion on which would be better.

The important thing to remember where additional powers are concerned, if you're going to poo-poo the addition of additional "bland" s/l damage sets, is that s/l damage sets are more versatile. To me (and presumably the devs), it's much more important to have a fun, thematically open, diverse power set selection. If you try to get more specific with the elemental damage sets beyond what they already do, you're going to be getting so specific as to pigeonhole anyone that wants to use the power set (Lightning Hammer, Flaming Spear, Frigid Axe) so it's wiser to simply have a single broadly defined set for each element. The nice thing about weapon based s/l damage sets is that there are loads of them that are still thematically different and conceptually vague.

Personally, my preference of new melee damage sets is the remainder of the elemental damage sets (re: Psychic and Sonic Melee), s/l damage weapon sets (re: Polearm, Staff, Eskrima, etc), and then, at the very end, elemental weapon sets (re: Lightning Hammer, Energy Blade, etc.).

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I will never understand why its ok that some people are allowed to have [x] and it is in fact their birthright... but other people wanting a piece of the exact same slice of dessert is "making the game a cakewalk."

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It's more that they're getting something for nothing, especially since it's a specific capability to ignore a crippling side effect that is much more common in melee and to high damage classes. Tankers and Scrappers get it because otherwise they wouldn't be able to do anything. Most of the Defenders and Controllers I know that routinely complain about getting held are bouncing around in melee. They aren't required to do that by design of powersets. Tankers and Scrappers are. That's why they get innate mez protection.

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Or perhaps we should REMOVE status protection from melee-types, eh? Sounds like a plan to me, and think of how "interesting" THAT would make the game.

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I'd be willing to have you remove status protection from the melee-types if you're willing to turn all Controller, Blaster, and Defender powers to melee attacks.

Status protection is a side effect of having to run around in melee. Imagine not having Immobilization protection when you've got to be in melee to have any effect. It's even worse than being stunned or held because, while you should be able to do something, you can't.

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You don't have to have been conducting any scientific inquiry or involved with any experiments for it to be Science origin. Walking down the street and getting splashed with toxic waste from a passing truck would be Science origin.

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That would be a scientific accident, sitting in the sun and yelling at kids would not

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It would if he sat in the sun and absorbed enough UV radiation to mutate him.

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in this case Superman is Science origin.

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Except Superman didn't mutate. He always had the ability to convert yellow sunlight into power.

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The Superman as a natural versus a science is always an interesting debate. Personally, I'd place him firmly in the Natural origin for a few reasons. First off, every Kryptonian has the same ability. One of the primary differences between Natural, Mutant, and Science is that Mutant and Science powers are outside of the realm of normal for their species. Secondly, he's simply more powerful because of location. If a human was transported to a world with one third of the gravity of Earth where all of the native life was less dense because of this, would they be science or natural (the answer is Natural)? It's simply a trait of their species that allows them to act in a supernatural manner within the conditions they find themselves in. The last is that, without continued exposure to our yellow sun, Superman would be completely without his powers (though the duration that he needs to be without the yellow sun radiation in order to lose his powers varies heavily). One of the hallmarks of the Science origin is that the changes are permanent. You can remove the exposure and the character will still have his/her powers.

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sonic? ice?

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I'd put my money on Sonic/* being the least played. Cold Domination still sees a good bit of play, not only because it's the newest and shiniest of the primaries, but also because it's packing some impressive debuffs and general utility. TA might also be a contender for least played, at least in my experience.

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Logically it is possible that the Praetorian Nemesis turned his genius towards some more savory end than world conquest. That could make him a rare example of a heroic Chessmaster architype, subtly manipulating events to ensure Tyrant's reign never becomes fully complete...

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That would be awesome, though I doubt it will actually happen in GoRo. The history of Praetorian Earth seems to be identical in all ways to Primal Earth up until Marcus Cole becomes Statesman, at which point he still becomes a "hero", he just takes over the planet as a logical extension of taking over defeating super powered "villains". I expect that Nemesis never got much accomplished after Tyrant took over, especially if there was a Praetorian Earth variant of Brass Monday. If there was, I expect that the Praetorian Nemesis doesn't actually exist any more...