Adeon Hawkwood

I never said it did. However, a general buff to all MMs needs to take into account the fact that a general MM buff results in Bots and Thugs being even more OP.

Ok, here's the deal. Yes MM damage is adversely affected by the purple patch compared to other ATs. I do consider this a problem but the two solutions you've proposed just cause different balance issues.

1. Make all pets the MM's level. The problem with this is that it makes MMs as a whole significantly stronger in non-incarnate content. I think that any buff to MMs in Incarnate content needs to avoid buffing them at +0.

2. Remove the level scale on the incarnate trials. Not going to happen. The devs have decided to use the purple patch to balance the incarnate content. Reducing enemies to level 50 just to help MMs makes balancing the content overall a whole lot harder.

The solution I proposed in my second post is an attempt to fix that. Changing all pets to be the MM's level means that they scale at the same rate as other ATs and applying a debuff to them avoids improving their performance at +0.

Yes. While some MM primaries (especially Ninjas and Mercs) do underperform to one degree or another that is not the same as the AT as a whole needing a buff. Bots and Thugs in particular are very strong so anything that buffs them is a bad idea.

See, that's a different issue. Ninjas probably could use a buff but that is different from buffing all MMs, especially if the buff involves removing the level debuff on the lower tier pets (which would be a HUGE buff to MMs).

I disagree. The only place where I find it hard to keep pets alive is the weapon phase of Lambda. The rest of the time I am not losing pets fast enough for it to be a major concern.

I actually agree with this, but probably not in the way you think. My issue with the level adjustment is that it means pets use a different scaling for higher con enemies compared to normal characters.

The solution I like is to make all of the pets the same level as the MM but reduce the damage scalars and apply a debuff that roughly corresponds to the effect of the pets fighting an enemy that is +0 to the MM. (As a side effect this would actually work as a buff for Poison since Noxious Gas wouldn't scale as much on different pets).

So the change would be as follows, first value is tier 1 pet, second is tier 2:

Reduce damage and debuff scales on powers by 20%/10%

Apply a debuff power with the following:
Resistance Debuff (resistable): -22%/-11%
To Hit Debuff (unresistable): -19%/-10%
Elusivity Debuff (unresistable): -20%/-10%

This means that minions would be the same effectiveness against +0 enemies. Against higher level enemies they would be slightly more effective offensively but a little weaker defensively (enemies would do about 3% more damage at +4).

Importantly for Thermal Radiation the resistance debuff is resistable which should (if I have the mechanics correct) mean that it works out about the same in terms of total damage after applying the shields.

Yeah there is some sense there. Challenge is a pretty limited power so removing that could be a convenient way to improve the pool. I think I'd still keep Invoke Panic as the second power though giving:

Level 6 Powers: Provoke and Intimidate
Level 14 Power: Invoke Panic
Level 20 Power: An AoE Confuse

No, melee characters get much better Taunt powers in their main sets. The taunt powers in Presence are mostly intended for non-melee characters who can be made tough enough to Tank, Masterminds, Crab Spiders and certain support sets are the ones who really use them, not melee characters.

That's an interesting idea. Balance-wise I think opening up all of the pool for free might be a bit to good for some of the pools. Most of the 4th pool powers are either not particularly popular anyway or are in sets where taking the pre-reqs makes sense anyway. The two powers I can see this being a potential issue with are Weave and Invoke Panic.

Weave is already regarded as being useful enough that a lot of people take at least one or even two power they won't use in order to get it. Boxing/Kick aren't particularly useful since most characters have access to better main powers anyway and while a lot of people use Tough it's not really that strong and I've seen a decent number of builds on the forum where it was being taken with no intention of being used.

Invoke Panic isn't in quite the same situation but with no pre-reqs it does become an easy way for someone to pick up a bit of AoE control.

I don't think the change you propose would break the game, but it would definitely be a noticeable buff for characters.

I disagree. Power pools are intended to round out characters and get them additional powers not available in their main sets. Making them weaker than standard powers makes a lot of sense in terms of balance since it avoids devaluing the primary/secondary powers. I do agree that the fear powers could use a buff, but they should still be less powerful than fear powers in regular sets.

He is not currently paying the subscription for his real account so is using a succession of trial accounts in order to get forum access. Since trial accounts only last 2 weeks he has to change forum names every 2 weeks as well.

For T4:
Core: Boss + Lieutenant + 25% damage bonus for both
Radial: Boss + Invulnerable Support Pet

So the T4 Core is basically a damage upgrade over the T3 Total Core. Depending on how you look at it the T4 Radial either means you don't have to worry about keeping the support pet alive if you're upgrading from Partial Core or is a damage/survivability upgrade if you originally had Radial.

It's the other way around, the support pets have Lt level stats. Presumably the non-invulnerable ones were to weak otherwise.

It depends on the character. For a character without mez protection (especially sets with debuff toggles) Clarion is a very strong choice. Ageless is also nice for some characters since it gives you recharge and basically means you don't need to worry about endurance.

Yeah, that's my feeling on the matter.

The "Item of Power" you get from running the trial is actually just a small buff that persists for a week. The IoP base item is no longer obtainable.

This pretty much matches my feelings on it. The longer you have to fight enemies for the more chance you have of getting unlucky or having them wear your hit points down.

Also, given that you are apparently planning to spend most of your time in melee range you might want to pick up Choking Cloud.

Regarding Health, I'd actually say keep the Numina proc and take out the healing IO it is providing less than 1 hp/sec of regeneration which shouldn't make much of a difference, especially since you have a self heal anyway.

It's hard to do with your style of play if you want the softcap. The problem is that if you want even survivability against most groups then you really need to either softcap all defenses of one category (either all positionals or all types) or softcap Ranged defense (with decent AoE defense) and stay out of melee.

The former is very hard to do without any defense in your primary/secondary and the latter is against your playstyle.

The alternative is to build up your defenses relatively evenly and accept less than the softcap.

Here's the math. We'll assume you start by taking Weave, Maneuvers and Combat Jumping. That is somewhere between 15% and 17% depending on slotting, let's assume the high end for now. Add in a Steadfast 3% and a Gaussian's set somewhere (Tactics or Aim) and you're at 22.5% to all positions. Beyond that it's hard to say without a specific build. You can probably fit in 3 Thunderstikes (3.75% ranged each) and maybe a pair of Aegis sets for 4.6% AoE each. Lockdown also gives both Ranged and AoE so one or two of those. That'll get you somewhere in the 30%-35% Ranged and AoE. Melee defense however is really hard to get on ranged characters. End result you can probably get in the mid 30s for Ranged and AoE and the mid 20s for Melee but it's hard to go above that. It's hard to say more than that without a build.

As for Incarnates Barrier Destiny will help but it's not a perfect solution. The values for Barrier Core Epiphany are:
+90% RES/DEF first 10s, 32.5% next 20s, 7.5% next 30s, 5% last 60s with a recharge of 120seconds.

So it'll softcap you 25% of the time, give you 7.5% defense 25% of the time and 5% defense the remaining 50% of the time. That's also the T4 which takes a while to get (especially solo).

To be honest if you want a Defender who is softcapped to most things then Traps is the best primary.

Because people being gender swapped in alternate realities is a staple of the genre (slightly below people being evil in alternate realities).

Actually my advice there would be to build for Smashing and Lethal Defense. Smashing and Lethal defense will protect against the majority of melee attacks as well as a decent number of non-melee attacks. The problem with melee defense alone is that most enemies will open with a ranged or AoE attack which it is useless against. S/L defense isn't perfect, you might get a Jekyll and Hyde feeling where you find yourself really tough against some groups (such as Council) but really vulnerable to others (such as Carnival). However for a character with no natural defenses in melee range it is generally the best option. The other advantage is that you can, if you want, pick up Mace mastery for a S/L defense shield (this will require you to switch sides and run a patron arc to unlock it though).

Gravitic is probably the least useful of the interface powers. However it's also the least popular which since the stacking limits are per target and not per player means you will actually end up doing more debuffing on a league than with the others.

For Diamagnetic I'd go for the -to hit proc over the -regen. Even at max stacking the regen only amounts to -60% which is negligible against an AV and AVs are the only targets who remain alive long enough for -regen to matter. The to hit is more useful against lower ranekd foes so you want the highest proc chance to get it on them fast.

Don't forget that you also got at least 1 component form it. Also, those Lambdas failed to get all of the temp powers. People are getting better and getting all 20 temp powers is the rule not the exception nowadays which means you get 3 Astral Merits per trial,

The current prevailing theory is that it has both a random and a performance based portion but that has yet to be confirmed by the devs.

Mids does not always have toggle powers on so I suspect when you looked at the builds in question certain key powers were turned off. It's hard to say for sure without knowing the build in question however.

There are two types of defenses, positional (aoe, ranged, melee) and typed (smashing, lethal, energy, neg energy, fire, cold, psionic). All attacks have certain specific attack vectors, most attacks have one positional vector and one or more typed vectors but that is not guaranteed. When you get attacked the game looks at your defenses for each vector the attack has and chooses the highest to oppose the attack. when building defense most people opt for one of the following options depending on powers and budget:
1. Softcap all positional defenses (popular with Super Reflexes and Shield Defense)
2. Softcap all typed defenses except for psi (popular with Stone Armor and Invulnerability)
3. Softcap one positional defense, usually ranged (popular with ranged characters lacking defense powers)
4. Softcap two typed defenses, generally smashing and lethal (popular with resistance based armor sets and ranged characters who have a S/L defense epic power)

Softcapping all 10 defenses is technically possible for a few characters (a Traps Defender is a good example) but is very rarely done.

Defense reduces your chances of getting hit while resistance reduces the damage that you take if you are hit.

The basic version is that 1% defense will reduce your chances of getting hit between 1% (against a +0 minion) to 1.7% (against a +4 boss) if it matches the vector of the attack. Conversely 1% resistance will reduce the damage you take by 1% if the attack uses that damage type.

For more information see the wiki:
http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/Attack_Mechanics
http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/Resist...28Mechanics%29

I disagree, I think that the incarnate abilities are very useful for all ATs. The abilities that they provide do not change by AT which means that they provide a static boost to everyone. However this static boost is less powerful than the equivalent power-set from a specialized AT. The net effect of this is that the difference in power levels between the ATs is actually narrowing slightly with the addition of Incarnate content. Look at it this way, Judgment provides an equal damage bonus to all ATs but it will have a larger percentage increase an a Defender's damage output than that of a Scrapper. Conversely Scrappers gain some force multiplication abilities but Defenders get the same force multiplication abilities on top of their existing ones.

So at the end of the day I do not think any single AT is getting more from it than any other. However, some ATs do perform better in certain situations than others, that is undeniable. For example, a Scrapper solos a lot faster than a Defender but the Defender is more useful to a team (since he's a force multiplier). I don't particularly care for this method of balance but that is another discussion entirely.

In fact, from what I can see the Incarnate system is actually going some way to rectify this balance decision. If you go back to my previous post I talked about how the slots made soloing my Traps/AR Defender easier. I didn't talk about how it improved his teaming ability because the benefits are minor compared to his current team support powers. The main benefit is that having additional buffs allows me to make up some holes in my current array while solo. Conversely for a Scrapper having a few force multiplication abilities makes him more appealing to a team since he can provide more than damage.

The simple fact is that teaming in CoX has been hideously broken in favor of Force Multiplication ATs (witness the exploits of Fire/Rad super teams, Green Machine or the Repeat Offenders) because buffs and debuffs are multiplicative while damage is additive. Adding limited force multipliers to the incarnate system makes ATs that aren't force multipliers more useful.

However the inverse is that Force Multiplier ATs have always had soloing issues and again the Incarnate systems is designed to address that. A damage buff in the form of Judegment/Lore increases their average solo speed somewhat, Destiny allows them to get some of the benefits of defense powers (notably mez protection if they lack it) while Interface allows them to round out their array of debuffs or increase their damage.

I think it's mostly a matter of player demographics. The more self-sufficient ATs (mostly melee ATs) have always been quite a bit more popular than other ATs due to being able to solo very well. Prior to the incarnate system this didn't really matter much since it was self-selecting. People who liked to team tended not to worry about being self-sufficient while those who liked to solo weren't joining teams very often. The Incarnate system gives a very strong incentive to team so people who were previously solo-focused are teaming a lot more. This shifts the AT demographics in favor of ATs popular with soloists.

That being said I give the devs credit for making team content that does not require a careful balance of ATs. Yes, at the moment we are seeing a higher portion of melee ATs but that isn't really impacting our ability to do a trial.

Compare that to a certain other MMO where you need a fixed ratio of Damage, Healing and Tanking with the net result of a huge shortage of Healing and Tanking.