Combat

Nope, never tried to solo like that on my Widow. He was built as an experiment in damage, not survivability. I don't fancy trying to survive with 0 base resists to non-psy against +4s, even with soft-cap (don't widows have scaling resists like SR? I forget). I have only tried +4 soloing on my TW/Elec Brute and my shielder, and maybe will try with my crab.

I mentioned earlier that I would prefer defense sets to get high levels of DDR anyway, to compensate for the fact that having high levels of resistance automatically gives you resistance debuff resistance, in order to balance the two types of survivability, and that is regardless of energy and ice (and EATs) getting high defenses in the first place.

I have other characters without DDR. My elec brute can solo +4/x8 without a spot of DDR, because he doesn't rely on defense as his only protection (thanks, energize and resists!)

A crab with fortification and serum can be very tough even with debuffed defense. The build I'm looking at has 40-50% resists, 2000 life, rebirth for regen, AND softcap R/A (hover build), plus pets to take aggro.

The reason shields is hurt significantly by the DDR change is because its other attributes are low; a shielder with 0% defense after debuffs will die. Other characters either get enough defense to protect against debuffs despite the lack of DDR or have much better resists, MaxHP, and/or regeneration.

I have a widow too. She has something like 75% melee defense, 62% R/A. I'd say a widow can get to the point that they ignore a few defense debuffs. Shield doesn't have the ability to build for more defense like the other defensive sets do, at least without sacrificing pretty deeply in other areas. For instance, my no purple Stj/EA (I had him decked out, but decided that I it wanted more on my TW/Elec Brute and didn't want to raise the money) has nearly incarnate-cap levels of defense, and could easily have more (Ice is the same way).

The difference is that other sets can overcome defense debuffs by simply having more defense. Because SD has less defense than the other sets, it cannot build for the same high levels without losing lots of goodies, and when debuffed does not have much to fall back on *outside of OwtS*. And no, 10% more health and 11.3% to resists is not going to save me.

Now, you can make the case the SD is still powerful, and I've admitted that. Like I said, the reason I chose DM/SD was because at the time it was the melee combination that I felt was the most versatile, able to survive against the largest number of enemy groups and AVs. Not the strongest, or the fastest, but the most versatile. Some people will still find that it can be made suitably strong for them, and that is great, but I have moved on.

I "tested" it by removing the membranes on live (not sure of character is working), and realized that defense debuffs are EVERYWHERE. So I used the wrong tense, should have been "has" instead of "will"

And given the change in value for membranes/enzymes, would have have waited to remove them? Sure, I have a lot of assets, but I didn't want to pay the billion influence opportunity cost. Anyone that had these HOs in their powers and didn't sell them off lost 200 million per HO. After I had removed the 5 or so HOs in the build (2 enzymes in deflection, 3 membranes in AD, maybe another enzyme or two thrown into odd powers), and played around for a bit it was clear that my playstyle and/or build would have to change quite a bit to enjoy the character, and instead I decided to liquidate so I could enjoy my next "main". Probably gonna be crab spider, and I already got all the purples, PvP IOs, etc., I need!

Not Dark Miasma now. DM at I0. There were a few differences:

Fear made baddies run away instead of cower/attack, making it virtually useless.

Tar Patch didn't have -res.

Dark Servant was immobile, had worse powers (including the runaway version of FS).

I also believe that twilight grasp didn't have -regen, and was weaker (and possibly that howling twilight lacked that affect as well), but I am not certain.

Of course, when DM was buffed it immediately went from suckiest support set in the game to overpowered, as they gave tar patch the same amount of -res as it had now with the ability to stack 3 at once, along with the sudden strength of having 3 fluffies out at once. And then subsequent reduction gave us the set we know today.

Woops, my bad. For some reason I forgot that Enzymes required endurance reduction and misremembered putting them in an /SR build before they became very expensive. Completely wrong on that. Energy aura could use it a bit though more though, with 5 eligible powers.

And just so people listening at home can understand what I was trying to argue:

My personal reason for disliking the change was that it changed the feel of SD, by giving it a new weakness to a very common threat (my DM/SD character was created as a thought experiment originally, as a melee character that could solo the broadest swath of content).

I responded to claims that it wasn't that big a deal by showing that a relatively small change in DDR of 25% would actually make shields 6 times weaker to debuffs.

I did not mean to make any claim that SD was weak or needed help because of this, as it is still a balanced set on the fringe of being too powerful for a melee set. However, the change definitely changed Shields relationship to FA for the worse, despite the fact that SR gained an advantage over SD; but more importantly to me it makes the character completely different (which I is why I felt I needed to show that I had some reason to feel like my character was greatly changed).

The rest of my argument was around the nature of the exploit because I felt that my character was in question from using the bug. Arcanaville is 100% right, of course, that leaving bugs in a system is generally not a good idea. However, in this specific case it appeared to give HOs a unique advantage that IOs couldn't (and those advantages are very small in number), and taking that away would cause more harm than good to enhancement balance unless the developers gave something back to HOs.

It was then that I started talking about why exploiting is not necessarily evil. The main argument I had heard for the change was that the bug itself wasn't intended by the developers, and that the lack of intention was enough, in itself, for a change. I disagreed with that idea because it seemed very similar to the old Jack Emmert style of design, and because accepting that argument would allow it to be used on more extreme examples of developer disagreement. I combined with the supports vs melee argument to show that just about anything could be against developer intention, as the strength of the strongest support classes was certainly NOT intended by current or former devs. I don't want support classes to be nerfed to make them equal to melee, and that was actually the point of my argument. The difference is that support characted benefit from an unintended scale of strength, while SD and those using the HO bug benefits from unintended code.

So, in TLDR form: Yes, SD is powerful. My character will be feel completely different after the change, and that was reason enough for me to scrap him for parts (I didn't delete him though). Even after this SD will be a decent set, with less survability than other sets but added offense, but will be outclassed by fire in many situations.

However, changes should not be made just because "the developers didn't intend it", but rather on whether they affect the game positively or negatively. This change would be positive if they made HOs a better alternative to IOs, and the easiest way to do that is to boost the levels of enhancement.

Actual TLDR version:

HOs are fixed, but are now even worse than IOs. Make them comparable, and I won't even be mad about my Shielder.

Me and JustBling got into an argument/shouting match. Mostly over my use of proportional math vs. his "real numbers". Others joined in. Also argued about other stuff, but the math argument was the main one (though not actually my main point).

Arcanaville posted smart stuff.

Demetrios ranted about HOs.

That's about it.

"Hamis are fixed, suck it up and move on."
Its about my integrity. You are attacking my character when you accuse me of throwing a temper tantrum and call me an exploiter that abuses the game without thought to the consequences. I have a history of doing things that are constructive. You don't. I have a history of reasonableness. When it comes to character, I have proven myself by my history.

And? My numbers still predict outcomes better. My numbers show that going from 0 to 83.3% can be equated to going from 70 to 95% in that both reduce incoming debuff by a factor of 6 from the previous level. Arguments can be made over whether 70% is enough DDR, and on whether game-impact of giving a resistance set DDR is equivalent to that of the same proportional change in a defense set, but not on the factual correctness of the the statement. You have attacked the math.

A newcomer to the game could correctly infer by my approach that defense, resistance, and debuff resistance all increase in strength nonlinearly, and become more and more powerful the closer they are to the relevant cap. Indeed, knowledge of this this fact is critical to understanding survivability in this game.

Personally, I don't even like DDR. I think it should work like RDR (resistance debuff resistance), or in other words, defense should resist defense debuffs. Obviously, we can't change the mechanics of game to do that, but we can approximate it by giving defense sets higher DDR. Given how easy it is for IO-sets to softcap defense, perhaps IO sets shouldn't give DDR, but I could easily see giving defensive sets equivalent amounts of DDR to their defense. In fact, I thought it was a bad idea to give AD DDR at all, as it doesn't give defense. I would rather have the DDR of AD distributed across the other powers in the set.

My math being easier to work has nothing to with it. It is just that my math can be used to make predictions. With my math, I can tell a player exactly what magnitude of extra defense to build over softcap to prepare for x amount of defense debuffage.

To be clear, however, I am not making the argument that going from 95% DDR to 70% reduces survivability by a factor of 6, but rather that the change in effectiveness vs a very common debuff is affected in a way that is numerically similar. Which is why it is such a big deal to me; my shielder couldn't beat mobs as easily or quickly as one of the signature options (SS/Fire for melee, examples given numerous times for other sets), but he was good enough and consistent enough to beat a wide variety of foes. In order to be as consistent, I would have to rip my build up and probably would lose either the recharge necessary for the top chain or the ability to sustain it, which means that I cannot use him as a general soloer in the way I did before.

The basic argument was that the change to shield is inconsequential. I've tried again, and again, and again to show that it IS a big change.

What you call being butthurt is what I call having character. I don't think this is right, and I'm not going to shut up about it, back down to competition, or retreat just because you tell me to (what happened to "I'm not telling you to shut up?"). I have a fairly long record of being a high-quality poster, and I'm not inflating this thread because I like to throw tantrums or because I am pissed about one character being weaker. I'm doing this because I do not feel it is good for the game. And just like your "real numbers", which do not accurately reflect what happens in the game, you have made the argument that an exploit should fixed regardless of the actual affect on the game. That, my friend, is the main argument. I think a change should, or should not, happen because of what it does to the game.

You are the one trying to make a real numbers vs proportion numbers argument. And despite what you seem to think, your math does not apply to the game. It doesn't. Mine does. I can tell someone that they will be twice as survivable if they get to 45% defense as compared to 40%, whereas your method states that they are only 5% stronger. In every way, my method makes predictions that accurately shows what actually happens in the game world, which makes it makes it the better math, end of story.

When I say that now defense debuffs are 6 times stronger against my shielder than they were before, that is literally true. It means that now I have to be 6 times as much defense over the softcap (30% was chosen for easiness sake) for the same security, which wrecks havoc over any min-maxed build.

At the same time, this only positively affects balance between 2 powersets, SD and SR (and SR was the one needing love). Note, that SR actually had the most potential of ANY class to use enzymes, as virtually every power in the set could have used the enzyme side of the exploit, so it is also negatively affected. SD was powerful, yes, but it was already overshadowed by fire and was below every set besides SR for actual survivability (and I'm not saying THAT should change, but that SD was balanced at that point). And outside of melee characters, it doesn't compare in team or solo situations to the top sets (Illusion, Sonic Blast, Traps, Cold Domination, Radiation, etc.).

Additionally, this change makes HOs even more irrelevant. They are too rare, and thus expensive, to be used by casual frankenslotters, and yet offer very little over IO sets (which can even get to similar levels of enhancement in some situations). I wouldn't have a problem having enzymes fixed if it meant that cytos were more made more useful, but as of now all it does it make me use IOs in every defensive slot.


And looking back at the thread:

1. I stated I am fine with shielder being nerfed if it is good for the game, multiple times.

2. I stated I am fine with HO fix in general, if HOs became more useful, multiple times.

...

I'll put this simply.

Let's say 4 minions = 2 lts = 1 bosses, and a hero can survive 3 minions with no defense or resistance.

At 25% defense, incoming damage would go from a value of 3 minions worth of damage to 1.5 minions worth of damage. Therefore, said hero would be able to survive against 6 minions, or 3 lts, or 1.5 bosses.

Increase that to 37.5% defense. That is half the value of the previous defense increase, and yet incoming damage is again proportionally decreased to .75 minions worth. Since our hero can survive 3 minions worth of damage with no defense of resistance, he can now survive 12 minions, 6 lts, or 3 bosses.

Half the defense, same effect. The value of each point of defense increases as it approaches 45%. 1% of defense does not equal x amount of damage avoided. The same is true for resistance.

It is more complicated than just knowing which enemies you can't kill. It requires knowledge of an AV's abilities, aggro control (ideally you would get the enemies to attack you in such a way that they do not use their most dangerous abilities), and the ability to find a very fine balance between damage and death. And a good build...


Functionally they do have the same magnitude of change. And every point of DDR does not reduce defense debuff by the same amount, just like every point of defense decreases damage taken by differing amounts. Going from 94% to 95% DDR is much greater than going from 0-1%, just like the last 5% of defense to softcap improves total survivability by the same amount as the last 40%. If I had designed the system, I probably would have may it work in the opposite direction, but the system is set up so that every point of defense, resistance, and DDR is more valuable than the last right until the soft-cap/cap.

Even without the exploit, shields is better designed. Heck, even with its extra offense, it is better designed. It allows the user to stack IO sets to reach the cap, gives and gives minor boosts to resistance and MaxHP, which makes the defense more effective. AAO has a side affect of reducing enemy damage (which is not directly resisted by AVs or GMs), and shields godmode is functionally useful even after reaching the softcap. Grant cover allows a shielder to be marginally useful to a team, and phalanx fighting makes a shielder gain benefit from shielding.

In contrast, SR is defense, defense, defense, and more defense, combined with DDR, DDR, DDR, and more DDR. They've been given slightly useful resists in the passives and quickness is a good power, but SR still is way too one-sided to work well in today's game.

PA is a good example of the old devs not understanding what they created. Some sets had ridiculously overpowered tools, like Illusion, while others were incredibly gimpy, like Dark Miasma. Still, don't forget that other controller sets were soloing AVs at the same time as Ill/Rad started too, and faster (Fire/Rad for example.) And nowadays we have tons and tons of characters that can do similar things without radiation or illusion. Some can't. FF for example. But that doesn't mean that quite a few combinations are more exploitive than any melee character can be, by design.

Actually, in many cases I did have to use finesse to beat an AV. It wasn't as simple as just using an attack chain over and over again till the AV falls. Because of the way a DM/SD works, you need to be surrounded by enemies to do decent damage, as Smite-SL-Smite-MG is actually not incredibly damaging by itself. In order to deal with AVs that have resistance or high regeneration, I had to constantly manage the number and strength of the foes around me, making sure that I did not kill them while at the same time constantly balancing my life. 16 bosses wouldn't die to soul drain, but could kill me easily (especially if they were +2, +3, or even +4), while 16 minions would die too quickly but keep me safe. Additionally, I did not possess enough resists or +MaxHP to take large hits well, and would have to carefully time my big heal so that I got good use of the +regen but didn't fall to a quick two-shot. Some AVs, like Diabolique (sp) took me over a half-hour before I finally got the right formula down, and even then I didn't have enough tools to stop them from running or activating a godmode.
He wasn't meant to be an example of SO soloing, but just an example of how even fairly tame combinations of support/anything can solo tough challenges in a broader manner than even my best meleers can achieve.

I'm trying to respond to every point against my argument.

One argument I kept hearing is that this change is minor, so I used proportional math to show how much of a change it is.

Others have stated that it is a good change simply because it was an exploit. In response, I tried to show that simply being unintended does not mean that a change is positive, especially considering that many things unintended by the devs have been positive additions to the game (and the old dev mindset of "only play as we intend" was destructive).

One claim was that the change was good because SR will be in better balance with SD. And while that is factually true, I don't think that SD should be penalized for being designed in a better way; rather, I believe that SR should buffed in a way that makes it a better match with the modern game (on an aside, I think any defense set that relies on defense as its main protection should get capped DDR).

Finally, many have said that I should just accept the change because I abused a bug knowing the developer stance on it. However, to me it was just a tool, and the one of maybe a half-dozen ways that IOs were still useful in the modern game. Removing these tools is understandable, though the effects of the game economy have already been a great drain on the resource's of those who used those HOs. However, I don't think is good for the game to remove these tools because it gives nothing positive to the playerbase while taking away the tools of builders and min-maxers on the whim of developers.

I would approve of this change if HOs became more useful because of it, but as of now all it does for me is dissuade me from playing one of my favorite characters, remove a viable build option that doesn't rely on IOs for effect, and make fire an even MORE popular set while doing little to help the sets that are relatively struggling. Developer intent should not be the deciding factor, but instead the affect of the game should be the critical focus. As of now, I can only see this change as a negative one, and it makes no sense for me to support it.

ex·ploit (ksploit, k-sploit)
n.
An act or deed, especially a brilliant or heroic one. See Synonyms at feat1.
tr.v. (k-sploit, ksploit) ex·ploit·ed, ex·ploit·ing, ex·ploits
1. To employ to the greatest possible advantage: exploit one's talents.
2. To make use of selfishly or unethically: a country that exploited peasant labor. See Synonyms at manipulate.
3. To advertise; promote.
[Middle English, from Old French esploit, from Latin explicitum, neuter past participle of explicre, to unfold; see explicate.]
ex·ploita·bili·ty n.
ex·ploita·ble adj.
ex·ploita·tive, ex·ploitive adj.
ex·ploita·tive·ly, ex·ploitive·ly adv.
ex·ploiter n.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition copyright ©2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
exploit
n [ˈɛksplɔɪt]
a notable deed or feat, esp one that is noble or heroic
vb [ɪkˈsplɔɪt] (tr)
1. to take advantage of (a person, situation, etc.), esp unethically or unjustly for one's own ends
2. to make the best use of to exploit natural resources
[from Old French: accomplishment, from Latin explicitum (something) unfolded, from explicāre to explicate]
exploitable adj
exploitation n
exploitive , exploitative adj

Better?

Exploit: Make full use of and derive benefit from (a resource): "500 companies sprang up to exploit this new technology".

Yes, I exploited it. That's what min-maxers do, by definition. And you know what? I enjoyed it. *Gasp*

And do you want to know why? Because the build with the exploit was a piece of art to me, like any high-end build. Just enough defense, just enough procs, end sustainability, and the ability to protect himself from his greatest weakness.

An exploit is only evil if it negatively impacts the players. This didn't. Using IOs to reach the soft-cap is much more exploitive than using a bug to gain higher DDR. Being able to keep Hasten permanent and 3 decoys out is much more game-changing. Did the devs intend for virtually any character to get soft-capped defense and high recharge with enough influence? Probably not. Therefore, the usage of those sets in such a manner is just as much an unintended consequence as the HO bug, and more exploitive by the actual definition.

Just because the devs didn't intend something doesn't mean that it can't be good for the game. We tried the "Developer's Rules" way of balancing with Emmert, who knew exactly what he intended (3 minion rule anybody?). Instead of judging something by whether or not the devs intended it, judge by the consequences. This change means that anyone who used an enzyme to eke out a little more defense will lose influence and have to remake their build, and it means that any high-end shielder will have to spend tons of influence in build remake (unless they were already using cytos and didn't use membranes, but I could argue that they weren't truly high-end then). It doesn't make other options better, and it only causes player frustration without positively affecting overall balance.

I would be fine with the change if a few things happened.

1. HOs increased in effectiveness to old levels (50% for class A, 33% for class B?). Personally, I feel that they should be level-less and uncombinable, but I would be fine with the current system if they enhancement values were increased.

2. SR changed to be more competive with Shields. I'd suggest some added damage buffs (though not a copy of AAO) and increases to maxHP.

This would be a positive change, and worthy of developer time. It would give players genuine reasons for picking SR over SD or vice versa, and it wouldn't be a slap in the face to builders. If anything, I would spend hours salivating over how to work in the improved HOs into my builds and would make me feel happy about game balance, despite melee-support discrepancies (which will never truly be fixed without a huge playerbase backlash like the SWG fiasco).

I believe that he hovered about the pylon to protect pets from the AoE, and stacked large amounts of -res on the Pylon. Having 6-8 pets with 2xAssault and lots of -res equals a lot of damage when they focus on a single target. Strategy would be harder on AVs and GMs, who use PBAoEs and move, but would be possible with an immobilize (I've practiced the method on a Crab on test, and it does work).

Perhaps stacked was not the correct word to use. I meant more like "complimentary", like -resists and -regen and invincible pets on one character. Many sets have access to both -res and -regen or extremely high amounts of one or the other, and those sets can fairly easily eclipse any melee build in solo or team play. Unfortunately, some support sets bring less to the table (FF for example), and like SR aren't adapted to the new style of play: blitzkrieg, tons of stacking buffs, recharge and defense from IOs, and only +dam, -res, and -regen as useful buffs.



We actually do have ways of telling who can solo better. Pure single target DPS is one great way, and that's why we have Pylons. We also do field tests, actually trying to fight high level foes without using inspirations or temps. In both tests, support has shown a greater aptitude because they have more tools. Illusion for example doesn't have to worry about survivability and when coupled with a suitable secondary can greatly affect AV regeneration and improve damage. A shield scrapper on the other hand would have to worry about being to survive the AV, keeping enough enemies nearby to overcome the AV's regeneration, and can only overcome AVs and GMs by throwing enough damage at them; if they can't do enough, they fail.

And many of these characters can do these feats without the same amount of investment. For example, I have soloed AVs and GMs with only SOs, before IOs even existed (right after Dark was buffed on my D3). In fact, Silverado has been soloing these foes for quite a while (I think he started before IOs). For a final example, look at the Solo Everything thread (I think it is on Freedom), where an Elec/Cold controller has tried to solo every soloable content in the game, including TFs, AVs, GMs, etc. Before lore pets, virtually NO melee character could have possibly put out enough DPS to hurt a GM. Even now, many sets are simply incapable of achieving these feats at any level of investment.

And you keep making the point that we shouldn't care because only a minority of players ever reach this level of build. Guess what, it still matters. It shouldn't be a focus of developers, but these changes do impact what a fair number of players do, and shouldn't be ignored just because it takes an extreme amount of effort to reach those levels. Remember, you are a minority of one, and you still want your opinion and viewpoints to be considered. So do players like me, who take enjoyment from planning and achieving goals.

Bots/Traps: Can solo any GM or AV in the game in complete safety.

Ill/Rad, Ill/Cold, Ill/anything with a regen debuff: No risk, same deal.

I'm going to stop there, but you are wrong. You assume stacking buffs and debuffs meant that my character was better than multiple support characters, and that is wrong. He isn't as good as ONE. Look up Silverado, and notice what he doesn't use: melee characters. And for good reason; they aren't as good at what he does.

Look in the Rikti Pylon thread. Notice that many of the top times are not held by scrappers, but by controllers, corrupters, and masterminds. And since you have a Crab, I'll just let you know that the fastest time ever was set by Crab, for a total of over 1000 DPS, over 3 times better than the fastest DM/SD with max mobs in AAO and Soul Drain. So don't cry to me about my character being overpowered when I can safely say that he wasn't the best at any single aspect of the game. And remember, every one of the support characters is much more valuable to a team than any melee character.

To be clear, I'm not angry about losing what I liked about my shielder. I can fairly easily replicate everything that he did on another character, though I am said that I will lose the invested time and effort I put into him. What makes me angry is that this change is not positive in any way. At best, it is a QoL nerf. And when developer time is used to negatively impact the playerbase, something is wrong. I would be willing to lose the ability to slot membranes if it meant that HOs were buffed to the point of actual usefulness, but right now it is just a net loss in usability.

I've made the point probably 5 times in this thread that SR and SD should not be judged in a vacuum. Yes, SD was better in almost every way. But that isn't a function of SD being overpowered, but instead that SD was designed in a way that matches today's mechanics much better than SR does. Even with this change, shield is arguable better than SR. I do think that SR needs some love, because it currently is way too much of a one-trick pony to compete in today's world. My suggestion was to make evasion a reverse-AAO; giving the strongest damage bonus at 1 enemy, but have it give a defensive buff that scaled upward with more enemies. Rememeber I HAVE a level 50 SR character, and he actually was created before either of my shielders.

Personally, I think shields and willpower are the best designed sets in the game. Both were designed to fit with the modern game, and use multiple ways to gain survivability, and both are adapted to many situations. In contrast, fire and stone are poorly designed, IMO. You can't balance them because they are so niche oriented that they need to be the best at what they do. I think SD and will should be what we aim for balance-wise as opposed to older sets, and recent changes have tried to do that (EA buff for example). This change goes contrary to that. I've accepted the loss of my Shielder, but really I would be okay if HOs became more useful (ie, go back to 50%/50% enhancement values), however as of now this change is solely negative.

I've also made the point that melee in general isn't OP in this game. Anything a melee character can do can be achieved with support sets, and melee only shines in one specific scenario (no temps/insps soloing on high levels of difficulty). So making the case that SD was monstrously overpowered is a case of exaggeration; nothing can approach the OPness of stacked buffs and debuffs.

And you are just wrong and using an incorrect argument.

My point is that this change makes a very big difference, refuting the argument made by many this isn't a big deal. My numbers are 100% correct; they are factually true. A 10% defense debuff used to deal .5% after DDR, and now it deals 3%. If that same debuff affected a toon at exactly the softcap, it would increase incoming damage by 60%, whereas before it would have increased incoming damage by 10%.

This change does little good to overall game balance. It makes HOs much less valuable than IOs, and they already needed help in that department. It hits hardest at the demographic developers should most want to keep: people with a lot of investment in the game and who are probably long-time subscribers. It makes shields MUCH less of a competitor to fire, and fire was already one of the most popular sets. The only good it could possibly do is make SD closer to SR, and to be honest, the problem in that relationship wasn't SD (and ironically, the enzyme change could affect SR the most, as they do not the flexibility of slotting that other sets possess).

But most of all, it shows that the developers no longer balance around SOs. If they did, than they wouldn't try have fixed this "exploit", which only affected high-end characters and could even have been considered a feature by this time.