Dispari

At face value, yes, but:

If it's firing off whenever, it may fire off at the tail end of combat. Or as you're using your weaker attacks. Boost Up only lasts 5s, so if it goes off at a lame time, it may be of little to no use.

If you put it in BU, you at least control when it'll be going off. You know for sure it'll be firing just before you use your strongest attack, your AoEs, or nuke.

So it may be less often, but at least it would be firing at the optimal time for you to take advantage of it.

Players can do it, it's more a trick of making sure as few people stand near the AV for RttC buffing as possible. It's important to kill off pets, especially weak ones like imps, who are hurting more than helping. If you can make sure everyone is as far back as possible, you can overcome it easier.

It can still be really hard, especially with SoW, since even at base that's a lot of HP and regen. Normal AVs regen enough as it is, so add in an extra 20% HP and Fast Healing and even one target in range for RttC and it hurts.

On the topic of absurd stuff, at one point there was a bug with Ninjitsu where it was damage capping whoever had it. It was applying a +100% damage buff (still does) so that it could simulate the hide crit. But it would stack with itself, and just add up to damage capped stuff instantly. I combined that with EM and AVs and have a screenshot somewhere of an AV hitting me for over 8000 damage.

On that note, WP AVs are hilariously durable. With the massive +regen and +HP buffs on top of a unit that already has huge numbers in those things, on top of RES, they can be super impossible to kill.

True story, I have a WP AV in my only published arc. I toned her down and removed powers a few times until I finally just made her super offensive-oriented by giving her Rage and whatnot. Having her run around with +20% ToHit doing 2000-3000 damage is much better than the alternative. Through all the rebalances and whatnot, many versions of her were almost impossible to kill. More than a few times I watched full teams of 8 struggle to even kill her. Adding SoW makes the encounter hilarious.

And back when the rezzes had normal recharge times, when she'd die she'd get a big chunk of time with +100% recharge, and then revive with all that HP and still have a bunch of regen and RES. I never once took a team through it that could kill her in the window before she could just rez again and again and again.

The best part is that WP has resistance to -regen.

Someone provided the quote, but I can see how it could've been ambiguous. I was responding to the topic being brought up and voicing my opinions on the theoretical. I blame GG.

In any case, I'll get back on topic! Stuff we've seen is cool, and I like the upcoming stuff. I hope they wind down the Praetorian focus eventually though. I don't want the next 15 issues to be Praetorian stuff at the expense of other things. But I can take it for another couple.

Customization is a core focus of the game. If it wasn't, they wouldn't devote entire issues to it, or make a healthy profit selling purely cosmetic items for real money. We have plenty of things to work for and unlock (inventions for instance). Clothes should not be one of them. Maybe if that shirt gave me +3% RES you might have a point.

And for some of us, this game is all about dressup.

When the "reward" we're asking for is purely cosmetic, and the name of this game is "customization," then yes. We're not talking about level advancements and powers that are balanced around specific content. There's no reason that a pair of pants needs to be locked until the very end-game.

The majority of new costume parts since about a dozen issues ago have been, and are, gated in some way. Costume packs are also gated content, to people who pay real life money. The fact that we've had "ungated" pants since issue 0 is not a sufficient excuse to make all costume parts for the last three years be gated.

There is no precedent for it.

Level 20: capes. They're only level 20. And the devs have given us tons of alternative options to capes, and different kinds of capes, and capes you can have at level 1. Because people complain about it all the time.

Level 30: aura. It's level 30. And the devs have given us tons of alternative options to auras, and different kinds of auras, and auras you can have at level 1. Because people complain about it all the time.

Level 35: vanguard. Hey we're getting a new pack that gives us all the vanguard parts at level 1. Because people complained all the time. Because it's a bad idea as much as I'm sure the intention is to make you feel like you're a part of the Vanguard.

Misc: wings. Wings are for month 15+ vets. Guess what? People complained. So we got wings we can craft, and wings we can get from packs. Wings we can have from level 1.

So where's the precedent for all these costume parts you can only have at beyond the max level? Where are all the costume parts that unlock only for level 50 characters? Or fully IO-ed out characters? Or level 50 VEATs/HEATs? It seems to me the only precedent is for stuff you get on your way up, and those all have alternative options and methods because people hate the idea.

And even if there were a precedent, you know people are just going to complain. Because locked costume parts are not the type of thing this game needs. The excuses you gave have never flied and never will. Locking costume parts does nothing but annoy people. Especially those of us who have been waiting for something new and keep not getting anything each issue that goes by.

Global unlocks I could get behind, as long as they aren't ungodly expensive and all new costume parts are this way. If you have to be an incarnate just to wear a pair of pants, screw that.

Because creativity is illegal and everyone always uses every single costume part for exactly what it's intended for.

Similarly you should only be able to use the mac pack if your character is an actual valkyrie; magic pack only for magic origin and mutant for mutant origin; you can only use the wedding pack if your character is getting married; you can only use that clockwork chest detail that everyone uses if you're actually a clockwork robot. You can probably see where this is going.

This game is about customization, so locking things that only serve as cute fluffy visuals to the very end of the game is both annoying and unnecessary.

If they were global that would be okay. I'm just getting tired of having to buy or unlock all my costume parts. When the hell am I going to get some actual costume parts with my free issue again? I feel like it's been years. And it probably has.

Or a way to break down powers already made so you can get to work on another tree. I already have a Musculature I made on a Dom that I don't actually want. If I make a high level Lore pet and then see another one I'd rather use, I don't want to have to start over and be left with an utterly useless power.

If by "interesting" you mean "really terrible idea" then yes. Locking costume parts to 35+ is already bad enough, but locking them to post-50 is a pretty bad move. If they do this at all (they shouldn't), it should be limited to an insanely microscopic amount of costume parts. Please just give us the rest as part of regular content.

No, I still disagree. Unlike a Blaster, melees do two things: do damage, and not get killed as easily.

To imply that if they suffer when they aren't currently doing damage because they're moving out of a patch is to similarly imply that any time they aren't getting attacked and thus taking advantage of their durability is them being marginalized. So literally any time a Scrapper is not currently being attacked by something they're wasting their potential. And I don't view it that way.

Melees can do one, or the other, or both, and still be useful to the team. Just because they aren't at that moment standing there attacking the AV doesn't mean they're becoming less useful, because they do other things than just do damage, which they can easily do when there's a patch on BM.

I suppose I could similarly argue that Defenders and Corruptors are marginalized because the presence of patches means they'll have to spend more time healing or rezzing people who can't dodge or resist the damage than normal, and thus aren't attacking. If I'm going to ignore the usefulness of their non-damage function I mean.

It's not a fact, it's an opinion. I think what melees bring to the encounter is useful. I gave my reasons for thinking that and seek them out for my team. You're welcome to disagree.

It's good for you if that's the case, and every team you ever take doesn't have any issues with the ambushes and moves as a cohesive unit. You asked why someone would take a melee on the team. I stated my reasons. If you're of the mindset though that melees are useless in this fight then my reasoning for taking them on my teams won't do anything to sway you. If you don't feel like taking melees at all then you don't have to. It's an opinion though, that they aren't of any use, and I'm happy to take them on my Apex.