Adeon Hawkwood

Yeah it would be nice to see some new ATs released. I think in terms of low-hanging fruit an Assault/Armor AT is the obvious choice. Give them lower scaling values for their defensive buffs than the melee ATs to avoid making them to unbalanced (I'd say around 75% of Scrapper values) and damage scales similar to Dominators and I think they'd be pretty balanced. They'd need some power changes such as replacing Power Boost in their Assault sets with either Aim or Build Up and maybe removing Taunt auras from their Armor sets (possibly use Stalker sets as the basis and give them a new AT-specific power instead of Hide?) but it would still be pretty simple.

I'm less keen on Blast/Armor since I think it would be to much a case of replacing Blasters. Unless their damage was down at Corruptor/Defender level (which would be stupid for a Damage AT) you get a situation where taking a high damage blast set gives you a choice of either an awesome self-defense secondary or a secondary made up of whatever powers were left on the floor after the other ATs had had their pick of the good powers.

The other thing I think would be interesting is a new AT using the Mastermind primaries. One idea that I like is a Mastermind that has a specific damage set (probably Assault since I think a full on Blast set would be a bit to good). I wouldn't give them full on damage dealer scales but maybe 0.75 (Corruptor level damage) would make their attacks useful without being to good. Power-wise the attacks in the Pet sets would need to be replaced but there's a relatively simple option there, replace them with appropriate powers from the thematically matched Buff/Debuff set (i.e. Ninjas gets a few Trick Arrow powers). I'd also change the Assault sets replacing whatever Aim/Build Up/Power Boost style power they have with a new power that provides a smaller damage and to hit buff to both the Character and his Henchmen. Basically the idea is a character who has less support powers than a traditional Mastermind but deals more damage.

Personally I would prefer a Resistance shield on a Time Defender rather than Scorpion Shield. If you take Power Boost (Soul Mastery) or the Clarion Destiny with Power Boost effects then you can use that to pretty easily softcap yourself to all three positions (or all six types but I find positions easier on a Defender).

If you can manage the End cost then Cold Mastery might be a good option. Snow Storm has a high endurance cost but the speed debuffs will help keep enemies in the ice patch and out of melee range.

Fire Mastery can similarly use Bonfire to knockback enemies when they get close.

Of the sets you list Time is definitely my favorite, especially on a Defender (I do quite like Thermal for Masterminds though) although you are definitely correct about it working best in melee range.

I agree with the steep learning curve on Storm. I've leveled two stormies to 50 and ended up retiring them both since I just could find a useful playstyle with them.

Cold is an interesting set. The order that powers come in is a bit annoying but it's actually a pretty good set at level 50. Frostworks is a bit meh (since most characters slam into the HP cap before they reach its full potential) but I'm hoping that one day the devs will change it to be at least partly an Absorb power. For Cold I'd strongly recommend taking Dark Mastery or Soul Mastery. People tend to neglect the resistances in Arctic Fog and focus on the Defense but if you slot Arctic Fog for Resistance and take Dark Embrace for your epic shield you can make a Defender with pretty decent resistance to everything except Psionic (about 43% S/L, 31% F/C/E, 23% NE/T) which if you combine with a moderate amount of Ranged defense makes for a reasonably tough defender (although unfortunately one without a self heal).

Thermal is an interesting set. Resistance buffs are much weaker than defense buffs in terms of preventing damage but at high levels there tends to be more Defense buffs flying around than resistance so having Resistance buffs can actually be a lot more useful. That being said I personally don't care for playing Thermal on a Defender but if you can stand it it's a decent set.

Sure. So with no regeneration you regenerate 5% of your hit points every 12 seconds or on average 0.41666% every second. Regeneration scales linearly so every +100% in regeneration bonuses will increase your average regeneration by an additional 0.41666% per second.

So +380% regeneration means that you will regenerate an average of 2% of your maximum hit points every second (which is pretty close to the 1.5% you quoted).

Now the only caveat I will add here is that the actual in game mechanic doesn't actually restore hit points every second. Regeneration always comes in pulses of 5% so at that you will actually be Regenerating 5% of your hit point bar every 2.5 seconds.

So with all the arguments about snipes and magic To Hit numbers it's relatively easy to forget the biggest change coming to Blasters in Issue 24: hugely increased regeneration. So this got me thinking, how much could a Blaster supplement this using IOs and how much of an impact would is have on his build? The answer ended up surprising me so I thought I'd post it here to see what others thought.

Power Requirements:
3 Powers that take Ranged Damage sets (AR and Electrical will need to take their Snipe or a power from their secondary but otherwise no problem for most Blasters)
2 Powers that take Healing Sets (Your new Sustain power and Health will work here)
2 Powers that take Defense Sets (For most Blasters this means pool powers but Hover, CJ Stealth and Maneuvers are all pretty popular for Blasters anyway so I don't see this as a huge problem)

Slotting:
In the three Ranged Damage powers frankenslot 2 pieces of Apocalypse, 2 pieces of Devastation and 2 pieces of Entropic Chaos (optionally the Devastation IOs can be replaced with two pieces of Overwhelming Force or Sting of the Manticore)
In the Healing Powers slot two pieces of Numina's Convalescence (including using the proc in one of them) plus slot the Regenerative Tissue: Regeneration into one.
In the defense powers slot two pieces of Luck of The Gambler (probably the +7.5% recharge one and either the Defense or the Defense/End depending on the power).

The Totals:
3 x Ultimate Regeneration Bonuses = 48%
5 x Huge Regeneration Bonuses = 60%
5 x Large Regeneration Bonuses = 50%
Numina's Convalescence: Regeneration/Recovery = 20%
Regenerative Tissue: Regeneration = 25%
Total: 203% Regeneration

Yuo can get it a bit higher but doing so is more Power Set specific. Electrical Blast and Mace Mastery are actually the best since they can use Soulbound Allegiance to pick up another Ultimate Regeneration Bonus. As a more general case a Blaster with a few melee attacks who uses Flight for his travel power could reasonably pick up 5 x Moderate Regeneration Bonuses using Pounding Slugfest and Freebird for another 40% regeneration (heck, for one slot you could always put one in Brawl).

Now for comparison we know that a Blaster with their Sustain power and Health slotted will have about +380% regen (the sustain will give about 320% slotted plus Health is 40%) so a Blaster building for regen could hit about +580% regen.

But what is the cost? Well it's hard to calculate but I'd probably peg the defensive cost at 11.25% Ranged Defense. The Healing and Defense powers aren't really impacted, you do lose the ability to 6-slot a Red Fortune in the Defense powers but I find that my Blasters rarely have the slots for that. So the primary cost I see is the loss of three Thunderstrike Sets in the single target attacks.

Now honestly I have no clue whether the regen or the defense would be better for survivability but I thought it was an interesting experiment.

EDIT: Ok, I had some further thoughts on this. If you have a total of 6 powers that take either Defense or Healing (count powers that take both twice but you need at least 3 Defense ones) you could reasonably drop down to only doing a Regen Frankenslot in two attack powers and potentially get another Thunderstrike set in at the cost of 16% regen. This is a lot more build dependent though.

When the Magic Set came out one of the devs (I think it was BABs but it might not have been) said that long skirts/robes are pretty much impossible to do for player characters without looking very, very silly when used with certain animations. That's why the magic Set got the Baron Jacket and the Bolero rather than actual robes.

Or take a third option: Stay in Praetoria and hope someone kicks Hamidon's amorphous pancake.

Well they said "next week" but I think they actually meant "next coffee talk" which due to Independence Day is next week (that's next week from now, two weeks from when they said "next week").