Adeon Hawkwood

No, they said that at the moment it is not being changed. That does not mean that it will never be changed, especially if they feel that it breaks the mold for Blaster performance (which is does since compared to the other Sustains it's got a completely different risk/reward ratio).

Ok. We'll ask the devs to let it continue to slot Taunt Ios and Sets. They won't actually DO anything but you'll be able to slot them .

Seriously though, you are correct in that it is, technically, a cottage rule violation. However the dev policy referred to as the cottage rule is not "never change a power into something completely different" but "never change a power into something different if there is any other option".

In the case of Challenge changing it to a Placate fixes one of the major, long-standing issues with the set which is that the majority of characters who might want the third and fourth powers in the set have zero interest in the first and second powers. The majority of characters in the game either have no use for a Taunt power or already have a better one in their primary/secondary. This drastically increased the "cost" of the non-taunt powers in the set (which aren't very good in the first place). Add in the fact that the majority of characters who do want a taunt power are likely to just take Provoke rather than Challenge anyway (because 90% of the time AoE is better) and you've got a power that is superfluous and a set that is extremely awkward to buy into. Changing Challenge to a Placate fixes the problems with the Presence Pool in general while having a minimal impact on players. In fact I would bet that the majority of people who took Challenge were just taking it as a per-requisite and would be happier with Intimidate anyway, people who seriously wanted a Taunt almost certainly took Provoke instead.

So yes, it's a cottage rule violation. But that doesn't make it inherently bad.

Well that isn't technically a nerf, it's a sidegrade. Bonfire without OF does one thing, with it it does another.

I'll admit it wasn't the route I expected devs to take but as far as fixes go it works for me. It leaves Bonfire completely unchanged for those who want the knockback behavior. For those who want a knockdown it reigns the performance in and puts it on a par with powers like Ice Slick and Earthquake. It's slightly worse than those powers which is fine since it has much better uptime.

Nope technically there is no unlock of EATs in the Parqagon Reward program. However there is an unintended situation where people who had EATs unlocked prior to Freedom generally got to keep it as a legacy unlock.

I'm not particularly fond of that solution. Speaking for myself I'd rather that the single target mezzes in Blast sets have their effectiveness as a mez improved rather than simply changing them all into damage powers with a mez side effect.

Yeah I tend to agree with this. I think that melee sets should get some damage advantage since melee attacks are a PITA to use but I think they're a bit to good relative to blasts at the moment.

Ah ok. In that case it's more about the DPA issue. Personally I'd have no objection to blast sets being given 20 second recharge blasts although as I mentioned above my understanding is that this is in general against the design philosophy of Blast sets. Arcana did somewhat addressed that up above but it still sounds like an across the board change is unlikely.

Giving Blast sets in general 20 second recharge attacks would, IMHO, be an interesting way to buff Blast sets in general and Blasters in particular (since it would give them the option of a very strong single target alpha strike). In most sets this could replace the snipe and in Ice it could replace Bitter Freeze Ray. Pistols, Sonic and Water would be the outliers here since they lack either a snipe or a convenient power to change. One option would be to split the difference and make their third blast a 15 second recharge rather than ten second so they get a slightly stronger third attack to make up for the lack of a fourth.

Don't forget Lancer Shot in Beam Rifle (ok, technically Penetrating Ray is higher damage but it's also a snipe).

In any case, I never said that the strongest attack in the set shouldn't also be a mez; I said that I felt it was wrong for BFR to be both the strongest attack and a mez and there is an important distinction between the two statements. Speaking for myself I think that making BFR deal more damage than Bitter Freeze Blast would upset the internal dynamics of the set but that's a personal opinion so you're free to disagree with it. My inclination would be to give BFR damage more in tune with it's recharge but also decrease the recharge to avoid making it simultaneously the strongest damage and the best hold in the set. Lancer Shot has a 2.12 damage scale (same as most 10 second recharge blasts) and an 11 second recharge blast. I'd say BFR should be slightly worse than Lancer shot (since having two mezzes in a set is more than twice as good as having one) so I'd probably peg it at about 2.12 damage scale and 14 second recharge.

A couple of reasons. First it would be the only blast set to get an attack that strong which kind plays with the balance. Secondly it would make it simultaneously the strongest attack in the set AND a hold which seems a bit to good. Thirdly my understanding from comments Arcana has made is that blast sets are deliberately designed to have lower DPAs than melee sets so giving them 15 second or 20 second recharge blasts would go against that.

Now if all of the snipes were changed to straight attacks with a 20 second recharge then it might make sense for BFR to have a damage somewhere near the level it should be for a 20 second recharge attack but unless that happens I don't think it should be an outlier like that.

Ummm... oops . For some reason I was thinking that snipes had a 20 second recharge time rather than the 12 seconds that they actually have. So what is the damage formula anyway? People always talk about it but I've never actually seen it.

So going back to my original point I wouldn't advocate making BFR a 3.56 scale attack that would be a bit silly. I would say drop the recharge and up the damage somewhat though. Maybe make it a 12-14 recharge time with a 2.12 damage scale (same as 10 second recharge attacks)

Double check the level. The enhancements are currently bugged and have a required minimum level based on the level of the character that got it. If you got it on another character and transferred it to your MM then it may be to high a level.

Or the MM version of Bonfire may be bugged.

How on earth do you figure it's behind AR in single target damage? Even if you assume Prma-FastSnipe it's got an extra single target attack, the ability to double-tap it's highest damage attack plus an Aim power.

According to city of data that's how it is working so apparently they go the problems worked out.

It might be possible to simulate it as a proc by having it apply a global -knockback enhancement effect to the character (basically an inverse power boost that affects knockback only) but I'm not sure if that would work or not since it heavily depends on when the game checks procs during power activation. The key point being does the game calculate the strength of a power before or after it calculates procs? I suspect it occurs before which would render the proc useless but I don't know for sure.

On that note though a proc that grants a short duration global knockback suppression effect to your characters might be an interesting option for the future IO set and as far as I know should be possible with the current power system

One thing about Synapse, the Team Transporter Power does make it somewhat less painful. It's still annoying with all the kill alls but if you are lucky enough to have two people with it you can at least save having to trek halfway through Boomtown and back (seriously though, the Team Transporter is the best use of points ever, especially for doing old content).

I think it was bought up. Given my understanding of how enhancements work I'm not sure that this would actually be possible to do.

I do know that the devs could make it so that when it procs it suppresses ALL knockback your character does for a period of time but that's got it's own set of problems (plus depending on how the power system works it may be that it suppresses all KB for powers activated after the one with the proc in it).

Honestly at this point I'd favor just turning all Snipes into a standard hard hitting single target attack (with 20 second recharge and damage reduced to match) and then making all Snipe IO sets into Ranged Damage sets.

Sure it would violate the cottage rule but it would stop the majority of the complaints (and generate new complaints from people who like the old snipes but I figure that's a smaller number).

For BFR I would say just increase the damage to where it "should" be for a 20 second recharge attack (which I suppose is supposed to be somewhat less than the 2.76 used for snipes). Lancer Shot has a Stun with the same duration and it doesn't pay for it with reduced damage. If people really feel that's to much at least make it damage scale 2.12. Then it has the same damage scale as a 12 second recharge attack on a 20 second recharge.

Yep. Frankly I would love to see more single team Incarnate content. So I say buff the rewards on those TFs and make the Abandoned Sewer Trial into Incarnate level content (complete with new Hydra-Os equal in power to Hami-Os).