Adeon Hawkwood

I can see the argument that some specific sets might need a bit of rearrangement but I don't think the sets need to be standardized across the board.

Fair enough, I have never encountered that situation although admittedly I play on virtue which tends to be a pretty relaxed place.

I realize that i['m in the minority when it comes to snipes, but I'll try to explain my reasoning. First off why i don't take it on Defenders. The only Defenders that I have ANY interest in playing are debuffing oriented Defenders (I currently have a TA/A and a Traps/AR, come GR I plan to make a Storm/DP Defender, although this may end up becoming a Corrupter). For these Defenders a snipe power is of very limited utility since I'd much rather initiate combat with a Debuff power.

As for why I like it on Blasters. My Blaster is an AR/Dev. Assault Rifle is horrible in terms of ST damage (technically Ignite fills that role but it doesn't really suit me as a power, maybe one day I'll try it again). Over time I've come to rely on snipe as an additional ST attack, I've got it slotted decently for Interrupt and using it in combat is possible, you have to time it correctly. Additionally in open maps I use the extra range to pick off fleeing enemies. Secondly I leveled my Blaster from 1 to 50 almost entirely solo. While doing that Sniper rifle was my primary form of damage mitigation. Up until the 40s I could use it to one shot most minions which is an effective 33% damage mitigation against a 3-minion spawn. Post 40 the relative damage dropped off but even then by dropping a Trip Mine before combat I could 1-shot most minions (and against Carnies I didn't even need the mine). Finally, I just really like the Sniper Rifle animation .

So yes, Snipe attacks aren't the best powers in the game and are near useless on a team but for a solo blaster they are an invaluable tool. For that reason alone I do not want to see the snipes go away.


When looking at Blast sets, I think you do need to consider more than just raw damage. Most of the blast sets have some form of damage mitigation on almost all of their attacks. Energy has knockback, Cold has slow, electricity has end drain etc. The two main exceptions are Fire and Archery (Fire just has an Avoid while Archery has one knockback and a stun). Assault Rifle is a borderline case, it does have knockback on a decent number of attacks but it doesn't have them on all powers and the chance of it proccing is lower than Energy (also like fire it has an avoid but the radius is to small to make it effective as a mitigation power). For these sets the additional damage is supposed to compensate for the lack of secondary effects. For fire this is accomplished through more damage in it's blasts (generally as one or more DoT ticks after the main damage is applied). For Archery and Assault Rifle this extra damage is in the form of a short recharge, crash-less T9.

Another thing to consider is that enemy groups have differing amounts of resistance and overall Smashing and Lethal are the most resisted damage types. Since both Archery and Assault Rifle deal lethal damage giving them a slightly better base damage as compensation seems fair to me.

Finally, while Archery and Fire might be the best sets for farming I don't think that is a valid reason for re-balancing. Farming is by its nature against enemies that are most susceptible to your damage type. If you took Assault Rifle and Archery in against every single enemy group in the game one after another I don't think that they would significantly outperform the other blast sets.

It's the debased American version of Rounders played by grown men who don't know how to play Cricket

Both Mind and Illusion Controllers have the same early progression. That being said, Mind is also considered weak although Illusion makes up for it in later levels .

They're organized differently so that they play differently. If they were all the same progression then differences between the sets would become pretty marginal. For example, Assault Rifle has excellent AoE damage but rubbish ST damage and no Aim to compensate. Fire has excellent ST damage, good AoE damage and Aim, it's weakness is no mitigation either as secondary effects or as a mez power. I could go on. Reorganizing the sets to all follow the same progression would just make Blasters more generic than they already are (seriously, have you ever seen anyone inquire what set a blaster is before inviting one? One blaster is pretty much as good as another.)

You can have my snipe when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers *shakes fist*. I'll admit they probably could use a damage boost but it is a good, if slightly situational, power. I don't bother with them on my defenders but I take and use it on my blaster.

This one is problematic. I can see where you're coming from but doing this would require a major re-balancing of Assault Rifle and Archery. A large part of the strength of these sets is that they can use these in almost every fight.

In general I agree with your assessments. I really like Devices, both for concept and because it's got some fun powers. That being said I've recently started a Traps/AR and the difference is like night and day. Even with the lower damage and fewer attacks available to a Defender soloing in my mid twenties is much, much easier than it was as am AR/Dev Blaster.

A few general comments of my own:

Damage would be nice on Web Grenades (I recommend Smashing) but I think there's a balance issue from the devs end. Technically the lack of damage is supposed to be balanced by the recharge reduction. The problem is that recharge reduction is a poor form of damage mitigation unless you have A LOT of it.

For both Web and Smoke Grenades it should be pretty easy to give them an alternate animation for firing them from an Assault Rifle. For Archery/Devices BABs might be able to make an alternate animation where he throws the grenade with his off hand while holding the bow in his left (similar to some brawl animations). The problem is I suspect that it would require giving all Devices users an Assault Rifle and Bow costume pieces in the tailors regardless of whether they use the alternate animations or not which might cause some issues (can a powerset have two weapons associated with it?). Of course I'm sure that the devs could find a way around these issues if they wanted to.

I disagree with you about Caltrops, it is an AWESOME power, especially if you solo at low levels. It does lose some utility at higher levels and on teams but at low levels it's an excellent way to keep NPCs with high melee damage away from you.

I agree about Taser, although in it's defense I'll note that both AR and Archery have a stun attack so AR/Dev and Arch/Dev both have the optino of stacking stuns to mez a boss. That being said I'm planning to spec out of it on my AR/Dev since the new difficulty setting mean I can gun down large spawns of mooks without having to worry about bosses (I can take bosses without a double stun, but it's slow, largely because AR/Dev has horrible ST damage)

Cloaking Device is a tricky one. The obvious solution would be to increase the defense that it provides but I think increasing it to really noticeable levels would be unbalancing. I like the idea of using it to increase damage but rather than a crit I'd rather see a direct damage boost. This has a couple of advantages. First off it would be extremely easy for the Devs to code (basically change it so Cloaking Device gives a static damage boost which is suppressed for 10 seconds when you attack etc.). Secondly a static damage boost would work with AoEs and most Blasters I know like to open with an AoE (especially in groups). Finally it would make Cloaking Device function as an erstz Build Up power for Devices, instead of a 100% boost for 10 seconds out of every 45 you get say a 30% damage boost on the first attack against every group. I know 30% sounds a bit low but Devices already has the advantage of having Trip Mine. You can place one before every spawn and get a 26.4% damage boost for 7.5seconds so if you combine that with CD you'd get a 56.4% damage bonus on your first AoE against every group (as well as having some close in defense ).

For Trip Mine I would like to see a reduction in cast time to 2s similar to powers like Gas Trap from Traps. Ideally I'd like to remove the interruptable portion but overall I can live with it.

For Time Bomb, I already expressed my views in this thread. To summarize, drastically reduce both the cast time (to 2-4seconds uninterruptable) and the detonation delay (preferably to 0s), give it a 50ft range and possibly lower the damage a bit. Rename it something (Satchel Charge would work, although I like Petard because it's a funny word).

I agree with you on Gun Drone. The damage is awful, but that's to be expected. Under the current timing though it just isn't worth the effort to summon the darned thing. In fact I use it so rarely I'd probably be better off replacing it with Hover purely to use as a mule power. Replacing the six-slotted Thunderstrike with a 3-slotted BotZ and a LotG would give me more defense, a recharge bonus and two slots to put to better use.

I think Cat covered supply pretty well, but I'd like to expand a little on demand. BotZ are VERY popular on high-end builds. They provide in 2 or 3 slots positional defense bonuses that normally require 5 or 6 slots (and most characters have 1 or 2 powers that can take them already). Most people aren't to concerned about keeping set bonuses when exemping down (although some are) and so will tend to purchase the level 50 versions of the other two IOs in the set (which are in much better supply). However for a character who doesn't have natural Kb protection having a Kb protection IO while exemplering is extremely useful. Therefore for a lot of people (myself included) a low level BotZ Kb protection IO is worth the cost to save a slot.

You do not have to use the IO system and the only place where the power level of IOs really makes a difference is solo (or very small teams) anyway. Even then you only really notice if you're cranking up the difficulty (and frankly powerset selection makes a lot more difference than enhancements even then).

On a large team you do not notice performance differences between IO'd and non-IO'd builds. In a team environment buffs and debuffs very quickly outstrip the performance of IO bonuses. For example, my blaster has a moderate amount of ranged defense (~26% IIRC) through IOs and on a team this is virtually irrelevant. I'm not planning to be shot at a lot in the first place and suppose the team has a FF defender? He alone will take everyone to the soft cap on defense (not to mention that carrying a few lucks around can boost defense a lot anyway).

The only IO bonus that I can think of that isn't easily overwhelmed by buffs is Recharge. A perma-hasten build will have something like 180% recharge (including IOs and Hasten) whereas even Adrenalin Boost only adds 100% recharge and Speed Boost adds a measly 50%. Even then the bonus isn't as significant as it looks, the primary benefit of more recharge on a team is to get powerful team buffs (RAs, AM, ML etc.) up for more time and unless you keep a stopwatch to time how often the emp kicks off an RA you're unlikely to notice the difference.

When it comes to team building selection of ATs and Powersets matters a lot more than IOs. If I was told that my team could have either a Rad defender with SOs or an Empath with a purpled out IO build I'd take the Rad every single time. Yes a Rad with IOs would be slightly more powerful than a Rad with SOs but I am unlikely to either notice and don't particularly care.

Yep, CoH was the first MMO I played seriously and it spoiled me rotten. I tried playing WoW and while I did level a character almost to 80 and greatly enjoyed the storyline coming back to CoH was a relief (especially being able to Super Jump across a zone in no time and being able to fight multiple enemies at once). Also teaming tools in CoH are wonderful compared to WoW, I can search for characters without regard to where they are and I don't need to worry about their spec.

This. Maybe I spend to much time on TVTropes but using ship now seems perfectly normal to me . In fact I think almost every entry on TVTropes with ship the title is about shipping. The only exception I can recall off hand is Failed to Pay Shipping Charges (which could be used as the title for a shipping related page if people wanted)

The EATs are not intrinsically more powerful than other ATs. The two Arachnos ones (Soldiers and Widows) do have a very unusual selection of abilities which make them both strong at soloing and popular on teams. They have good damage but also get access to a number of buffs and debuffs that will help a team. For example they have their own version of the Leadership powers which are cheaper to run, more powerful (at least Maneuvers is) and can be doubled up with regular Leadership powers if they have the power slots to spare.

Basically Assault Rifle and Archery are the two primaries with the best AoEs (primarily because their T9 has a 60second recharge and no crash). Mental Manipulation adds Psychic Scream as an additional strong AoE as well as several other useful powers.

Archery tends to be favored over Assault Rifle for farming since it has Aim and RoA is a bit easier to line up than FA in outdoor maps. The only real advantage of AR over Archery is Flamethrower but the fact that it's a DoT tends to be offputting for farmers.

Freespec is a term that is used to differentiate between the two different types of respecs, earned repecs come from Vet rewards, the trials and for villains the patron arc. Freespecs are everything else.

Technically Freespec means "respec that is not stackable and is accessed through the /respec commands rather than the normal respec contact". It should probably have a better name but it's called a freespec because the most common source are the free respecs given out with new issues.

Yes, but it's zero magnitude and doesn't actually do anything.

Weird.

Honestly, I wouldn't particularly care if the devs decided to reduce the number of melee ATs (but then I don't particularly enjoy playing any of them). From a group recruitment point of view I pretty much break the ATs down into Damage (Melee), Damage (Ranged) and Support. The only one that I actually focus on recruiting is Support, for the others I'll take whomever shows up in response to announcements in Globals or Broadcast. I like at least one Melee AT just because the players tend to be more comfortable taking point but if I don't get one I'll take point myself.

But that's a design decision by the devs not a requirement. They could make a Henchman set that doesn't follow that progression it just would require more work in terms of making a sensible power progression. Pet focused characters in most games tend to have problems with progression being in a series of spurts rather than a gradual progression and I think that the current sets are designed to try and smooth it out.

The point is that I really don't think mixing and matching the existing powersets will create new character frameworks. It's more likely to create ATs that are either darn near useless or horribly overpowered. I'd much rather see new EATs who can be designed from the keel out around a very specific character framework.

My comment was more directed at the MM with one more powerful pet than the MM with support pets since I think a powerset focusing on support pets would be problematic without a major overhaul of pet AI since support powers tend to require significant care in their application. But even for the support pet I tend to disagree with your disagreement. A MM with support oriented pets would be doable. The devs would simply need to reduce the number of pet related powers in the powerset (say 3 max), and add in more blasts (so a total of 6 attacks). You'd end up with something akin to a defender with weaker attacks but a wider selection of buffs (and the weaker attacks can be compensated for by either by just giivng the atttacks a higher than correct base damage or [preferably] designing the pets around themes that include buffing damage or debuffing resistance).

Would it solo as well as a traditional Mastermind? Probably not, but look at defenders, they have a very wide range in how well different powersets solo.

Are you sure it's not just a speed thing? The hostages move pretty slowly so even with just sprint and swift you can easily leave them behind. SS would just make that worse.

I think Archery/Mental Manipulation

Actually the current hostages seem to detect you through stealth just fine. My Blaster has full PvE stealth and I have never had any problems with hostages following me despite keeping it turned on all the time.

I do a bit of both and in general I think you're correct that the recipes thing is a little more profitable (and importantly requires less starting capital than flipping). The downside is it requires more time spent at WWs since the range of vendorable recipes is a lot larger than the list of salvage than can be profitably flipped.

The other thing to keep in mind is that flipping salvage is a good way to get the first few badges notably Scrounger and Merchant for more salvage storage and an extra market slot.