Adeon Hawkwood

Plenty of Blasters are able to move in close to foes without holding them first and to some degree this is where your secondary comes into play.

Pretty much every Blaster Secondary has a power that makes using Short Circuit safer:
Devices: Smoke and CD let you get the first strike, Caltrops keeps enemies away from you
Electrical: Short Circuit + Power Sink means you can drain them completely at once rather than needing two cycles of Short Circuit
Energy: Power Boost + Short Circuit also means you don't need two cycles of Short Circuit
Ice: Chilling Embrace and Ice Patch help keep them from attacking while you sap (and CE is getting buffed in terms of radius in I24), Frozen Aura also offers some possibilities if combined with Stealth.
Mental: You can use Drain Psyche at the same time to handle any damage you took.
Fire: Like Caltrops Hot Feet encourages foes to move away form you and slows them down.
Dark: Ok, I can't think of anything but at least you're moving into melee range to use Soul Drain anyway.

In fact overall I would say that Blasters have an easier time leveraging Short Circuit than Defenders. While specific Defender priamries have an easier time than Blasters they don't all have powers that make running into melee range a good idea.

I disagree. I would like to see some changes to specific Sustain powers but I don't have any issues with the actual mechanics. Plenty of other characters are reliant on click buffs (such as some mez protection powers for Defense sets) so I have no problem with some Blasters getting similar powers. Similarly I think most Blasters use Aim/Build Up more than you think.

I'll also add that I have no issue with the idea that the game is balanced around the idea that you are using certain tools in your powerset. If Electrical gets a chunk of it's ST damage form VS then I'm fine with that.

Ah, ok I didn't realize you were talking about Ball Lightning for your single target attack. For what it's worth I agree with you that Electric should get a single target damage buff I just disagree with you on means and methods. My Charge Up suggestion was intended, in part, to provide a way for Electrical Blast users to get a large uptime for the FastSnipe mechanic regardless of AT or secondary which would provide one way to increase Electrical's damage within the context of the currently proposed Snipe changes but that doesn't mean it's the only option.

Arbiter Hawk has discussed pushing more damage into VS. While that works from a numbers point of view I'm not a huge fan of it from an actual play-style point of view. Uncontrolled single target damage is a LOT less useful than an actual attack. There are some other options here (such as combining it with a Haunt style taunt mechanic) but those are more significant changes.

Converting Zapp to a non-snipe power is also a viable option but, in general, I think if this is done then all of the snipes should be similarly changed.

It depends a lot on your character and powersets. AoE heavy ranged characters often have 6.25% recharge bonuses coming out of their ears (my AR/Dev Blaster has five of them without slotting a single Decimation set). Additionally Ranged Defense bonuses tend to be the 6-slot bonus and in the case of my attacks I'll pretty much be 5 or 6 slotting them anyway. Non-attack powers on the other hand are more likely to only need 5 or 6 slots for the set bonuses so a lot of the time Thunderstrikes are a more slot efficient way of boosting my defense.

Yeah I think we come at it from different angles. For me it's not primarily about rewards (although they do matter) and it's not about really about story. It's all about blasting something in the face. What I'm blasting in the face, why I'm blasting them in the face and who I'm doing it with don't really matter. I tend to migrate towards blasting something which offers rewards I want since I do enjoy progressing but at the end of the day I just want something to blast. On my Incarnate Time/Elec Defender I'll often go to the RWZ and do the repeatable missions at x8. Not for any particular reward, I just enjoy electrocuting large numbers of Rikti.

Fundamentally is this any different from regular content? You've got story arcs that can be solo'd and Trials/TFs that need a team. The Trials/TFs offer better rewards/time than the story arcs.

I don't really get why you feel that the DA arcs are unrepeatable. Sure the story isn't new but back when Reward Merits were new there were plenty of people repeating story arcs through Ouro in order to farm merits so it's not exactly unprecedented. While simultaneously other people were grinding ITF/STF/LGTF/LRSF in a team for merits.

Now that being said I would like to see more TF-style Incarnate content which need a 6-8 man team. Sort of fill in the gap between the DA arcs and the Trials.

EDIT: I'll also add that I agree that I think the devs did screw up somewhat with the release schedule for both the DA arcs and the incarnate slots. I think if they had a release schedule that looked like this it probably would have gone over better:
I20: Lambda, BAF, Judgement, Interface
I21: Dark Astoria, DD Trial
I22: Keyes, Underground, Destiny, Lore
I22.5: TPN, MoM
I23: Magi, Hybrid

Basically space the slots over a longer period and release the solo path closer to the group path. Still I give them credit and hope that they learn from their mistakes with the later slots.

EDIT2: It occurred to me I should also defend trials so here goes. To me power isn't about being able to defeat hordes of enemies it's about being able to defeat powerful enemies. In the case of the Incarnate Trials I need allies because my enemies are EXTREMELY powerful. The Incarnate powers are making me more powerful, it's just a situation where my enemies are so powerful that I need a team of allies who are similarly powered up to defeat them. So in general I like the idea of the trials, I think a situation so drastic that it requires a team of the absolute best to defeat makes sense. As long as my allies are a similar power level to me then my increased power IS making a difference. Now if my allies were level 10s being exemplared up I would question it but so long as I'm surrounded by level 50(+3)s I'm fine with it. I will admit a bit of annoyance as to the particular foes I'm fighting since for the most part I've already kicked their punk *** solo and I don't really care for the Puddle of Annoyance answer as to why they are now so much more powerful.

So overall the trials do make me feel more powerful, I just don't care for the opponents chosen. But I manage, Marauder isn't the Marauder I fought he's his more-powerful identical twin .

It depends a lot on the team. Yes, in many situations teams run at low difficulty so sapping doesn't mean much (but then neither do a lot of Defender debuffs). But at the other end of the scale I've been on teams where a Blaster using Short Circuit was doing a LOT of the work at keeping the team alive (in one memorable case the team was lacking in support but did have two E/E Blasters who would just run in and drain the spawn so fast that they were barely attacking).

I'll also add that you're focusing on team play. Solo Short Circuit is an excellent survival tool for a Blaster.

How is that different from any other Blaster? The majority of Blasters are relying on using Aim and Build Up every 45 seconds to maximize their damage. I'll also note that since Charge Up has a much more generous up time than Aim and BU you can reasonably set ti to Auto Fire and be done with it.

I can get that you don't care for self buffs but in that case you should probably just play an AR/Dev Blaster and be done with it because EVERY Blaster is reliant on self buffs to some degree (and more so with the upcoming survivability changes). AR/Dev has the advantage that all its self buffs are toggles.

Ok, now I'm REALLY confused. What exactly is it that you DO want because I don't think it's a Blaster? Pretty much every Blast set has three single target attacks with 4/8/10 second recharge. If you removed the interrupt on Zapp (either be converting it to a standard attack or using FastSnipe) then Electrical Blast becomes a Blast set with a 4/8/12 attack chain which due to how recharge and damage works is slightly better than a standard 4/8/10 chain.

I would say that we go as deep as we need to go until there is a valid solo and team path all the way to Omega. The whole point of the Incarnate system is that our characters ARE becoming more powerful. What's the point of that if the content doesn't become more difficult as well? I want to feel that my efforts in the Incarnate system are allowing my character to face content that he wasn't able to face before.

I'd have no problem with that. In fact in another thread I argued for making that change to ALL of the snipes since I find the current FastSnipe mechanic to be unpalatable due to the inconsistent application between ATs and Powersets.

I would argue that Short Circuit has utility for Blasters as well. It's slightly easier to leverage on a Defender who takes an appropriate primary (Traps, Time, Dark etc.) but I'm met a number of Blasters who can leverage it effectively as well (especially when it's combined with Power Sink for very fast draining).

I posted my wishlist for Electrical earlier in the thread but I may as well do it again since you asked. These changes assume that the Snipe changes go live roughly as is.

First the small changes:
1. Decrease the cast time for Short Circuit and change it so that it deals about 50% of it's damage up front. This makes it easier and safer for Blasters to use.
2. Increase the damage on VS, possibly by adding a chain effect or just a straight damage boost, decrease the cast time (and maybe change it so it just appears next to you rather than needing a summon location declared), increase it's movement speed.

Now the big one. Remove Aim and replace it with a new power called Charge Up (because I suck at naming things). Charge Up would provide a moderate To Hit Buff (enough to hit FastSnipe with little or no slotting) and a small damage buff (probably less than 20%). Duration would be 30 seconds and recharge 90 seconds. While Charge Up is active Charged Bolts, Lightning Bolt, Zapp and Ball Lighting all have a chance to Chain and hit additional targets. I'm thinking something like 30% for Charged Bolts, 50% for Lightning Bolt, 100% for Zapp and maybe 10% per target for Ball Lightning (the Ball Lightning chain effect would only hit one target for each chain proc, not a full AoE).

The general effect of this change would be two-fold. First Electrical Blast using SOs gets FastSnipe two-thirds of the time on it's own about 90% of the time if Charge Up is cycled with Build Up (you can probably hit 100% with IOs). This would help with the single target strength of the set by allowing it to use Zapp to make up for the lack of a third ST blast. By adding chaining to it's single target attacks and Ball Lightning it gets a bit more AoE strength at range. An IO build with decent recharge should find it possible to get Charge Up permanent giving more options for IO'ing. Finally it doesn't technically break the cottage rule (Charge Up still buffs To Hit and Damage).

Not everyone has a smartphone though (I contemplated it but honestly don't consider it worth the extra cost for my phone plan).

PANCAKE No! This would utterly KILL the set for me. I have a Time/Elec Defender I adore and part of the reason for that is that Short Circuit allows me to drain the endurance of an entire spawn at once. If it became a ST attack then Electrical Blast would be pretty much dependent on Thunderous Blast for AoE Sapping and even with the upcoming nuke changes that won't cut it.

Short Circuit is pretty much the linchpin of Electrical Blast. It may not have great single target damage, it may not have great AoE damage (the lack of a cone hurts here) but it does have one thing no other Blast Set has and that is an AWESOME sapping power. I can accept reasonable changes to bring the set up to par but if you remove the sapping from Electrical Blast then it's pretty much useless as a set since even with a third ST blast most of the other sets will be better (i.e. Ice and BR offer more St damage with about the same AoE, Rad offers more AoE and about the same ST damage, etc.).

Now I can accept making some changes to Short Circuit (such as shorter cast time). I could even accept making it a ranged AoE (although I'd really hate the smaller radius that would almost certainly come with it) but I could not tolerate making it a single target attack.

It depends a LOT on the ATs and powersets being compared. Take a character like a Bots/Traps MM using SOs and put them up against an IO'd Incarnated Blaster and the MM could definitely give the Blaster a run for his money. On the other hand an IO'd Incarnated Brute (pick whatever powerset is FotM) will probably out-perform the SO'd Bots/Traps.

Now Bots/Traps is one of the strongest powerset combos in the game and is almost certainly a finalist for the "most powerful using SOs" award (if not the winner) while Blasters are a contestant of "weakest AT in the game" so it isn't really a fair comparison.

Speaking for myself I don't see a whole lot of point. The purpose I'd use this sort of feature for (as opposed to the current semi-solution of using Alts) is for a situation where the character has a justification for significant shifts in their powers (in my case due to multiple suits of power armor). For me this sort of setup is only worth mucking about with if the powers are significantly different which in general means a different AT (or different primary in a few cases).

So Adeon Hawkwood currently has four variants none of which would work in the setup you proposed: AR/Dev, Traps/AR, Bots/Traps, Beam/Dev. Now if the option was that you could change AT but one of the powersets must match a powerset on the original character than I could make it work (Traps/Beam as the primary character, Beam/Dev and Bots/Traps as the alternate builds).

So yeah in that case I'd do it in a heartbeat even if I had to individually level the characters to 50 and do their Incarnate content separately. Yes, it would be worth it to me to completely remake three characters just to be able to have the character called Adeon Hawkwood for all three powerset combos and be able to "change my armor" in-game. I still don't expect the devs to do it though.

Not to mention that Arachnos agents are already there working against the Council so there's already the basics for a good story arc. What would be cool is if it was made co-op with red-siders getting their own story arcs that roughly parallel the hero ones (but with more emphasis on figuring out what the Council is up to and less on defending people) and that also unlock the Hess TF (that one works fine as a co-op TF since you're already working for Arachnos as a Hero).

So basically story-wise Heroes come in and get one set of arcs, Villains come in and get a different but both of them lead you towards helping Hess take down Archon Burkholder.

I'm leaning towards "new MMO that has some play style similarities to CoH but is NOT a superhero game".

And yet for a lot of ranged damage characters it's a better option than most of the ones that are on sale.

I'll be honest here. I pretty much define "fully incarnated" as having a T3 in every slot since that's where diminishing returns hit hard. The value of T4s is, for the most part, not worth the effort. The only slots I routinely bother with T4 in are Alpha and Destiny. However for the sake of this thread I'll stick to your definition.

1. One, my Time/Elec Defender (he kinda got it by accident since he had a lot of VR salvage sitting around and I really love playing him)
2. Four currently (not counting the Time/Elec above) however I'm planning to retire two of them since I have to much powerset repetition amongst my Incarnates which has been boring me. I've got four other characters that I'm considering incarnating but I'm not sure how many or which of them I'll end up doing.
3. None of them really. I roll characters that I want to play and the ones that I incarnate are ones that I want to continue to play after hitting level 50.
4. Sure, I currently have 14 characters and 5 of them have basically zero chance of becoming incarnates (although they do all have their alpha slot unlocked and a couple even have an Alpha Slot ability). In each case I had little interest in playing the character anymore once they reached level 50 largely because I just didn't enjoy their play-style. In one specific case I did enjoy the character but just didn't like how he performed on trials (Demons/Thermal MM). I've toyed with the idea of incarnating him using mostly DA arcs (which would be more in character for him than the trials anyway) but it's low on my priorities list.

I believe that the content should be inclusive but separated. I don't really want one set of content that's designed for everyone to play because frankly that isn't going to feel epic enough for my incarnates. However, I would like to give non-Incarnates the chance to participate. To that end I would like to see the Battalion content come in three flavors which I'll call:
1. Stopping the Incursions
2. Defending the Beachhead
3. Taking the Fight to Them

So what do I mean by these?

Stopping the Incursions
This is the mid level content. Starting at level 30 (since there isn't a whole lot of new content there) and continuing to level 50 you get access to missions that are about dealing with the attacks by the weaker vanguards of the main invasion. My ideal is for this to include level 50 TFs (similar to Apex/Tin Mage) that are accessible to non-Incarnates but that also provide Incarnate progression up to Lore/Destiny (to provide more incentive for Incarnates and Freeps to play together at high levels).

Defending the Beachhead
This is the DA-equivalent, it's unambiguously Incarnate content but like DA the focus is on solo and small team play. As the name suggests the idea here is that the main force of the Battalion is attacking FBZ and it's up to you to help hold them off and smash up their forward bases. Difficulty-wise I would expect this to be harder than DA with most enemies being level 50(+2) 0r 50(+3) so that it's primarily intended for character who already have 2-3 level shifts (although no doubt some could solo it earlier).

Taking the Fight to Them
This is the equivalent of the Praetorian War where large groups of Incarnates are working together to defeat the Battalion's main force and end the war for good. Enemies would be mostly 54(+2) to provide a solid challenge even for +3 Incarnates.


EDIT: Just one thing to add here. Part of what I'd really like to see is the idea that all three areas are equally important in terms of actually winning. The less experienced heroes are holding the line and protecting the people of Paragon while the more experienced heroes are busy trying to stop the main invasion, if it wasn't for them the Incarnates would return victorious to find a blasted wasteland where Paragon City used to be. Similarly the solo heroes in FBZ aren't second stringers they are the special ops teams and skirmishers fighting around the edges to distract the enemies and draw off reinforcements so that the main force has a chance to actually win. One thing that kind of bugged me in the initial Incarnate content is the feeling that the big, flashy raids are all that actually matters in the Praetorian war.

I have a Demons/Thermal Radiation Mastermind. So at any time I am:
Watching for targets to heal (both AoE and single target heals)
Watching for allies that need a mez broken
Keeping track of Forge and recasting when it's up (similar to using Fortitude but it's a worse power)
Making sure all my teammates and my pets are fully shielded
Manually positioning and ordering my pets

And despite all of that I still have time to use my personal attacks. So don't give me that "Empath's don't have time to blast" BS. If you want to play a character that is truly busy play a Mastermind.

I believe his suggestion was that you make an alternate build with Group Fly. Then join a BAF, leave Group Fly running the entire time and see how long it takes for people to yell at you to turn it off.

While I don't think his attitude is particularly helpful I think he does have a valid point. Back when NtG was originally implemented one of the major complaints was that since the options were tied to a physical NPC as opposed to being a menu command it was impossible to toggle them on the fly. The problem here is that there are people (such as myself) who never actually get around to visiting NtG for one reason or another (in my case I only actually think of it when someone casts Fortune on me and by the time the mission/TF ends I've forgotten). Having the ability to turn off the effect of Group Fly on the fly without needing to visit NtG would be nice for the handful of occasions when someone actually has it. Plainguy is talking about suppressing it from the users end since it seems that the NtG options will never get implemented into the actual UI.

Yep, forgot about Pain.

And to add insult to injury Defenders and Corruptors have access to Focused Accuracy giving them the option for a large quantity of To Hit Debuff Resistance, something only available to Devices Blasters.

Welcome to the Internet.

Yeah it wouldn't make a whole lot of sense (why is my Defender's Ice Shield more effective on a Tanker than a Brute?) but it would be interesting from a balance perspective. It would provide an alternative way to differentiate between ATs in a high-buff situation other than buff caps.

Not necessarily a good way but an interesting way.

As for Enhancements now all we need to do is convince them to change IOs so that their set bonuses behave the same way as Attuned enhancements (but considering how much I PANCAKED about it in Beta I doubt that'll happen).