Adeon Hawkwood

In general Epic powers have twice the recharge and twice the endurance cost of Primary/Secondary powers. That being said it is applied somewhat inconsistently and speaking for myself I find that they don't apply it to powers that really should get it (such as Sleet only getting a 50% recharge increase) and do apply it to powers where it isn't really needed (such as the single target holds in epic pools which are balanced around the single target mezzes in blast sets rather than control sets anyway and then have their recharge doubled).

Frankly I think that the Epic pools in general could really use a good balance pass. Nerf a few powers that are a bit to strong, buff the ones that are a bit weak and reconcile the inconsistencies in cases where APPs and PPPs have the same power (except maybe Soul Drain, I can accept that one being balanced based on the tier it's in).

Actually Tactics uses a different attribute than Aim, Build Up and Targeting Drone so it would be perfectly possible to increase the To Hit Buff that Blaster's get from Aim and Build Up without buffing their ability to use Tactics (although if this were done I think that it might be necessary to "nerf" Targeting Drone so that it retains the same final To Hit Buff value).

Yep. If you want melee classes to do decent ranged damage for their handful of ranged attacks (a not unreasonable request) then give them decent ranged damage modifiers and balance any ranged attacks that they do get around that. Don't use a work around.

Since people seem unduly curious about what things annoy me with how the power system is set up here is a partial list to save people from needing to ask me "does this annoy you?"

• There is no Ranged_Hold attribute and ranged holds use a horrible mix of Ranged_Stun, Ranged_Immobilize and Ranged_Ones with what appears to be complete randomness.
• Every AT has the same values for Ranged_Stun and Ranged_Immobilize except for Masterminds and Corruptors (which exacerbates the previous problem for those two ATs). Also Masterminds for some bizarre reason have Defender level Ranged_Stun but only Blaster/Corruptor level Ranged_Immobilize
• Single target mezzes for non-control ATs are horribly inconsistent.
• Several Epic Pools and Patron Power Pools share powers but have them implemented differently (examples: Charged Armor and Soul Drain).
• The damage done by Detonator varies WILDLY between the human-pet sets (Thugs, Mercs and Ninjas) and the non-human pet sets (everything else).
• Blasters have the worst self To Hit buffs.

Ok, that's all I can think of right now. I'll update if I think of more.

Actually it can. although the sleet patch only lasts for 15 seconds the debuff it applies actually has a duration of 30 seconds so as long as you keep the target in the patch for the 15 seconds the effective duration of the debuff is 45 seconds which is permanent with SOs.

I don't think it was about hoarders so much as about controlling what content could be used to progress. Think about the complaints regarding BAF and Lambda when they were first released. If people could have just farmed the ITF for shards would they have bothered with BAF and Lambda at all?

Now I'm not going to make any comments on whether that was the right approach for the devs to make but I think that was their reasoning.

If they do then I really, really hope that they keep the Notice of the Well from the WST. Using that to make your T3 Alpha Slot ability makes the initial Incarnate startup for a character a lot easier.

You are totally misunderstanding my stance. I have nothing against Rad, and honestly cannot see anywhere in my post that I suggested anything like that so I have no clue why you think I'm campaigning against it. I think it's one of the more powerful Buff/Debuff sets but I've never actually played it.

Similarly I think that Storm is a good set, I'd rank it pretty much smack dab in the middle of the pack along with Thermal Radiation. I don't care for it myself but that's an issue of play-style rather than numbers. I, personally, prefer Cold Domination to Storm because I feel like I'm doing more to help the team but that doesn't mean that Storm is bad (in fact I've leveled two Storm Summoners to 50).

Similarly I'm not campaigning against Trick Arrow, I'm campaigning for it. It's one of the four Buff/Debuff sets that I feel have performance issues. That isn't to say that any of them are unplayable simply that I feel they need buffs to bring them up to the level of performance other sets meet. I tend to campaign for it a bit more vigorously than the other three (FF, Sonic and Empathy) because I happen to like it more than those sets.

^This. Even if I've played one or both of the sets before playing a character while leveling is still one of the best ways to figure out how his specific powers interact to best effect.

Yeah with Posi I tend to drop the Dam/Range and then slot a 50+5 Range IO in the 6th slot if the power is a cone. It just doesn't have enough Acc, End or Rech for me to be comfortable dripping those in most cases (although I did drop the Dam/End on one character who used the Cardiac Alpha).

I agree with the sentiment though. I rarely want Range specifically in my sets so I'd much rather slot for it specifically or use an Alpha Slot Ability to get it rather than having it in sets.

Ah but the nukes themselves are consistent between themselves. Also in general it bothers me a lot less when a specific power breaks the general mold for ALL ATs then when a specific power breaks the mold for ONE AT. You have to have a certain number of powers that break the generalized rules either to balance individual sets or just to differentiate the sets as long as the general power level remains the same I'm fine with it.

The AT boundaries however are a lot stronger. Blasters do more damage than Corruptors who do more damage than Defenders. When the same power does the same damage on all three ATs (or worse the Corruptor does more damage than the Blaster) then it's breaking the inherent rules for ATs.

It's a 30 second duration on a 60 second recharge. It can only be stacked with a high recharge IO build.

You originally said "no other set can stack as many and as varied debuffs on a target as TA can". I selected the sets that allowed me to counter that argument. Yes, I did select the cream of the crop but that reflects the nature of the argument I was countering more than anything else.

Your claim was that TA was the best set at debuffing and I made the argument to counter that assertion. I selected the sets I did because they are all strong debuffing sets, I could laos have selected Radiation Emission which has similar numbers. Cold Domination (the other top tier set) is different enough that a direct comparison of debuffs alone isn't really valid. In fact the only set that I would say is primarily debuffing and doesn't meet TA's pure debuff numbers is Storm Summoning but it works in a very different manner to TA so a direct comparison is somewhat tricky.

I didn't bother comparing it to Force Field, Sonic Resonance, Empathy, Pain Domination, Kinetics or Thermal Radiation because those are all primarily Buffing sets so would not be expected to match TA's ability to debuff foes.

And the sets I listed can all debuff foes to an equal or greater degree than Trick Arrow.

The mobility issues of Traps are... greatly exaggerated. I have several trappers and even when leveling them using SOs (as is my wont) I never felt like I was having mobility issues and having to wait for key powers to recharge. If a team was moving fast enough then I often didn't need to use all of my powers but that happens with any debuff-based set.

And that's where you'd be demonstrably wrong. I like Trick Arrow. I also like Time Manipulation, Traps, Cold Domination (now that the shields are AoE) and Thermal Radiation (although only on Masterminds). I do know that I don't care for Storm Summoning. But I've leveled all of them to 50 at least once except for Cold Domination (currently level 30). I'm pretty sure I'd also like Dark Maisma if I ever get around to rolling one.

So yeah, I've played debuff focused sets enough to feel pretty confident that I know what I'm talking about when I say that Trick Arrow feels underpowered compared to the other debuff focused sets.

EDIT: Heck, I even like Devices so I'm stoked to see it getting buffed in I24.

Ok, there are two general responses I want to address to this post:

First stacking debuffs in general. From a very high level point of view there isn't any difference between stacking debuffs and stacking a mix of buffs and debuffs. There are few execution differences which tend to favor buffs over debuffs but from a practical point of view debuffing an enemies change to hit isn't really any different from buffing your team's defense. So while TA is the only pure debuff set the majority of mixed buff/debuff sets have a similar performance envelope but with buffs replacing some fo the debuffs.

Now your second point that TA stacks more debuffs than other sets is IMHO wrong.

Let's assume that TA stacks Flash Arrow, Glue Arrow, PGA, Acid Arrow and Disruption Arrow on a spawn (those are the AoE debuffs that can reasonably be used every spawn). That combines to unenhanced values of:
-6.25% To Hit
-20% Recharge
-90% Speed
-31.25% Damage
-40% Resistance
-25% Defense
There's also a pulsing sleep but the DoT from Acid Arrow will tend to break that

Now compare Dark Maisma. It can stack Tarp Patch, Darkest Night and Fearsome Stare for :
-37.5% To Hit
-90% Speed
-37.5% Damage
-30% Resistance
And a Terrorize mez (which is more useful than sleep)

Now it is missing the -Defense and -Recharge but those are the least useful of the debuffs and Dark is only using 3 powers to TA's 5.

What about Time? It can stack Time's Juncture, Distortion Field and Slowed Response for:
-15.625% To Hit
-65% Recharge
-128.5% Speed
-25% Damage
-30% Resistance
-25% Defense
And a pulsing Hold patch (which is better than a pulsing sleep patch)

The stronger To Hit and Recharge Debuffs will more than compensate for the slightly lower Damage debuff so the only place TA really wins is the slightly higher Resistance Debuff

How about Traps, it can stack Caltrops, Acid Mortar, PGT and Seeker Drones for:
-13.3% To Hit
-30% Recharge
-80% Speed
-53.2% Damage
-26.6% Resistance
-26.6% Defense
-1000% Regeneration
And a pulsing Hold patch

Although I'll admit that Traps has a very poor T8 and T9 powers (at least for now).

I could go on but I think that makes my point. TA has a nice range of Debuffs but it is far from being the undisputed master of debuffing it's only real strength is a slightly higher resistance debuff than other sets.

Or just use Notepad

Sure they can. They'll be wrong but that won't stop them from claiming that the cheese was moved.

I don't know about comics but it would certainly not be the first video game to feature a character throwing a shield, in particular the big fantasy MMO has a shield throw power for one of it's tank classes. Now admittedly it's not a superhero MMO which does change things a bit where trademarks are concerned but it isn't quite as unique as you suggest.

Well except for Drain Psyche the Blaster click sustains are being done so that they are permanent with SOs so you'll be able to use them effectively prior to level 50 (which is why I think that Drain Psyche should be adjusted).

This should NEVER have gone live. It COMPLETELY unbalances the Suggestions Forum. Forum PvP is RUINED FOREVER!!11!!!

Precisely, the majority of my characters would not fit into a traditional Superhero setting, they wouldn't be completely out of place but they also wouldn't really fit. When I design characters in CoH I'm mostly designing characters for what is basically a near-future, high tech military Sci-Fi setting in an alternate reality where magic is just a different type of science.

It's the sort of story that interests me so it's the setting I design my characters to fit into. They work just fine in CoH though because the setting is flexible enough to support them.

A lot of the forum crunchers who sing the praises of DP do actually use it. What you have to remember though is that they sing its praises when used with a really high end, top of the line Blaster build.

It is legitimately very good in that situation but it's a power that you really have to design your build around if you want to use it to good effect.

The thing is I don't agree that Trick Arrow is "fine but late blooming". I agree that power-wise it is a back-ended set but I think that says something more about the quality of the early powers than the late powers.

Oil Slick Arrow and EMP Arrow are both nice powers but they aren't inherently out of line for Tier 8 and 9 powers in a Buff/Debuff set. For example compare OSA and Emp Arrow to Fallout and EM Pulse in Radiation Emission. Obviously the powers aren't identical and OSA is obviously not as situational as Fallout (due to not requiring a corpse) but the basic power level is about the same. However the rest of Radiation Emission is quite a bit stronger than the rest of Trick Arrow. The debuffs provided by IR, EF and LR are quite a bit stronger than the combo of Flash, Glue, PGA and Disruption in everything except resistance debuff (and it's almost as much there).

Now Radiation Emission is one of the stronger Buff/Debuff sets and I don't expect TA to be bought up to it's level but I would like to see it bought up so that it's somewhat closer to the level of performance that Rad, Traps, Dark and Time enjoy.

Well now that is interesting. If I hadn't shelved my Inv/Axe Tanker I'd definitely spec her into that.

Actually in my experience they very rarely lie because if they get caught in a lie it's bad PR. What they do do is make vague statements that either don't give any real information or are misleading.

Yeah that one I knew about but given that a few coffee talks back Zwillinger said something along the lines of "we've looked at doing new ATs but are not working on it at this time" I have a feeling that one is dead in the water.