Eric_Cogswell

Also, keep in mind... this *is* being done on a FF or Sonic defender.

While you may not be a tank, if you have your own defense up this high, that certainly bodes well for the defense of the team as a whole.

If they were going to go aquatic, that would probably be a whole update, or perhaps even a new paid-for Expansion...

City of the Depths

Underwater zones, a city, and Coralax Prestige classes.

I think that with the changes being made to the epic sets----specifically the way that mulitple powers will open up in a given level---- that the same should be done with the travel sets.

I've played with all the travel powers over the years, and they all have shortcomings that could be worked on, as well as strengths for why people pick them. An extra power at the 3rd or 4th tier would work wonders for most of them. Some of them need adjustment to the existing powers just to remove sillyness.

I'd also like to comment on the attack powers of Flight, Superjump and Superspeed. I won't argue the reletive value of these powers, some people like them, some don't... I do however think that since they are in the 'travel pools' they should involve travel. This seems more possible now than in previous years, since we are getting attacks in some pools like the new Sheild set, or the one in the Electric (melee?/Armor? I don't play it but I've seen it) that teleport you to your foes and then hit them. Air superiority should give a fast flight ending with the hit to the target---allowing melee's to zip up and smash flying foes out of the air, or allowing a hovering person to quickly close and hit while in the air. Jump Kick should be just that---a jumping kick, not the handstand of ridicule it is now, again, a tool to quickly close with a foe and do some damage. Superspeed should get the same treatment. In all cases, the movement should be shut back off once the attack is delivered. Currently Teleport is the only travel power who's 'attack' involves moving the foe or yourself.

Flight- My personal favorite.
I keep coming back and loving this game for this power alone. Nearly no other game has the freedom and fun of a character with fly. Certainly it's the most intuitive travel power to use, the easiest as people say. It's also the only one that actually debuffs your ability to function with it's early power.

I believe that making Hover equal to base run speed is an outright requirement. Even with the speed bonus it got, and including the fact that swift now affects it, using it in combat before you can slot it and Swift with SO's is a death sentence unless you can effectivly keep the mobs attacking someone else, or you abandon the power when you need to flee----how idiotic is that for a 'travel' power? In similar fashion, Flight's speed should be brought up to be more in line with the other travel powers---I don't mean equal to them, but the suggestion I saw earlier in the thread about making flights capped speed the same as or slightly better than Superspeed's unslotted value seems very reasonable to me.

Group Flight is another silly power in the set---mostly because of the accuracy debuff it gives it's victims. I'd like to see 3 things happen here: First, make it a click AOE buff rather than a toggle--the nature of the power severly hamperes it's usefulness as a toggle, for one thing it leaves the person with the toggle faster than those *attempting* to follow, leaving the intended recipients of the power to plummet to their doom. Secondly, make it suppress if any other travel power is active on a character---people who don't want it can run Sprint (and it's prestige varients),Hover,Combat Jumping, Superspeed, Flight or Superjump to supress it's effects, putting the receiving player back in control of their movement. An Alternate to this would be to have it grant a short duration temporary power, but I think this would be more trouble than it's worth---perhaps if you could make it spawn it's own special button on the screen somewhere so as not to mess up anyone's power trays. Lastly, I'd like to see the Accuracy Debuff removed from it---this has got to be one of the only debuffs in the game that you can victimize people with, I can't understand how it's been allowed to last this long. Even if it means making it supress like flight does, the Acc debuff should go.

Supression on Flight is a last flaw reletive to other travel powers.... simply put, it's too slow. Your flight should supress to standard movement speed. If your running Superjump or Superspeed, when it supresses you are at your standard movement and jump abilities, in fact, since sprint, swift and hurdle do not supress and you happen to be running them, your suppressed to that speed instead---Flight however suppresses to the far too slow of unslotted hover with maybe (I'm not sure) the added speed of swift, which may as well be immobilized for all practical purposes. Of course, I also belive that Hover should also be at standard running speed, so if that change were to be made, having it suppress to that level would likely follow naturally.

For a 5th power, I'd suggest one of 2 actually. First, assuming that flight never gets put on par with the other travel powers, a Supersonic flight sounds great--even with a longish recharge time, and/or restrictions such as the inability to attack this is exactly the improvement needed to the set as a whole if the speed of Flight itself stays where it is. A second suggestion, and my favorite of the 2, is a Grant Flight power that is a single target buff---it would be much better than Group Flight (as it currently stands) for Masterminds (or anyone with a groundbased pet) or those wishing to have something fun to spam on newbies in the Hollows.

Superjump- My second favorite
I have much less to say about superjump, mostly because it's practically perfect as it stands, with it's fast speeds, excellent manuverabiliy, and low End cost. If you happen to have the jump pack from the Good Vs. Evil set, this power almost becomes the supersonic flight that our armchair pilots want since you can at that point jump off from any point, including mid air---there is no come down, only an everlasting fully manuverable up at superjump speeds.

The only sillyness I see in this set is Jump Kick---mostly because it's not a jump kick. I spoke on this earlier however, so won't say more here.

A 5th power is difficult to suggest for this set, given it's overall quality and functionality as a set. A Grant Jump could work (why not, we already have Group Flight and TP friend), or a defensive power similar to Repel (you bounce anything that gets close), but I think best power you could give this set is an Auto-power that makes you immune to falling damage.

Superspeed--The gift that keeps on giving.
You look at this set, and you wonder if whoever designed it and superjump didn't have blackmail material on whoever is in charge of balance. In one set you have Hasten, Superspeed, and Whirlwind. Even after several changes to Hasten, it still remains a staple of powergamers.

Once again, the only power of the set that is at all silly is the attack... underperforming, over priced punches--and never mind that for a 'travel pool' power there is no travel involved. But again, my main problem with these attacks are mentioned above. This one gets an additional note that the sound effect for the punches should sound more like Shadowmaul--a quick *flurry* of punches, not the slow lingering pow...pow...pow... of the current sound effect.

I'd put a vote of sillyness in here for hasten too. For all the attempts at nerfage on this power, people still continue to use this as close to permanantly as makes little difference--- it should be turned back into a toggle again. If not for a Defense bonus on it, I'd say just make the dang thing automatic. My personal feelings are that it should be made a runspeed/defense power, Then turn Fitness:Hurdle/Swift into a single power with the second power turned into a Recharge buffing power (coordination training or something). The recharge boost fits thematically with the powerset, but not it's purpose. I know I'm the lunatic fringe here, but I got sick years ago of being told how gimped I make myself for not taking hasten.

However, unlike superjump, a 5th power for the Speedpool is glaringly obvious... A power that gives you the ability to make medium vertical leaps. Unlike Superjump or Combat Jumping though, make these leaps like Hurdle or the Jump Pack----increased height but no extra manuverability. I would not think that the height of superjump would be needed, but enough so that it's cap (plus a capped hurdle) would nearly equal an unslotted superjump would be reasonable.

Teleport- A very mixxed bag.
I like the teleport pool alot. It fits thematically for nearly everyone, since in the game lore you can buy into the cities' teleport grids and is thus available to anyone with the means or influence regarless of origen or powers. The powers themselves, especially Recall:Friend, are very utilitarian, and I'm personally a very big fan of useful utility type powers.

The Silly vote here comes into play for the whole set really... the red circle of doom thing. Please, please fix this. Others can debate the usefullness of Group Teleport, and of them all, I think it has the least utility, but I don't know about it's being actually silly---I just don't think it's a good option for group travel, especially when you can buy in to the set with Recall:Friend. For people who play together alot and can act as an organized team, Group teleport works well to both start and flee combats, making it more situational than most people like---but compared to something like Group Flight it's a godsend.

As for a 5th power, this set is also an easy one--2 actually. First and probably easiest would be an overland (zone) teleport. Simple copy the code for the Orubourus portal, and give it the selections of every zone available, like a supertram--- the team could use it as well as yourself, and all are happy. A second one, and one I'd rather have: A teleport that took you to the map object you currently have selected---or perhaps that popped up a map of the current zone, with selections for any missions, contacts, stores, etc... I would not allow thumbtacks, since they sometimes go funny places, but any of the default game map markers should be good. Of course, the uber 5th power would be a combo: it pops up the portal which gives those that click on it the map, where you can first select the zone you want, then any default map marker in that zone---yep, I just fell right off the end of the lunatic fringe.

Well, My idea to better equalize all the travel powers went thus:

1. Change Sprint to +spd instead of specifically +run and +jump.

2. Change Swift to +Spd.

3. Change Hurdle to Perfect Vision: +perception, +range

4. Increase Hover to base walking speed---seriously, this should not be a self infliced debuff.

Thus all travel powers have the same amount of advantages. Teleport is worthy of it's own fitness power because to do it you also have to increase every other ranged power with it.

As an aside, I'd also change health to be Health+Stamina with endurance drain resist. The final fitness power could be a self rez or Discipline: Mag 3ish resist vs sleep, hold, stun, confuse.

Flight pool is just plain broken....sadly I'm a die hard flyer on my main.

Air Superiority is the one power I don't want from it, and the only one that from all reports is fine. For my money, I think all the travel pool attacks should have some motion to them---Ie, click air sup and you zooom to your target and smash him. Jump kick should be a wire-fu long distance jump kick. Flurry should run up and flurry, possibly even circling the target. But I digress, they seem Ok for what they are now.

Hover----is a joke. A bad one at that. It should not be a travel power, sure. But it also should not be a self-inflicted de-buff either. It's base should be equal to unenhanced movement, just with the ability to fly added in. For all I care, don't allow it to accept flight enhancements at all, if it must remain that slow to have balance, but I should not have to slot to avoid losing normal ground speed. It's end cost does seem resonable.

Flight----- is stupid. At 46, which is at or near it's speed cap, I have it with 2 End, 3 fly. 5 Slots grants me flight which is slower and still more end intensive than my wife's Superjump at 23, which was completly unslotted when I first tested it after her free-spec. This is unacceptable and completly unbalanced. The air control of flight over jump does not justify having way more end cost, way less speed---and the kicker for me, when fly suppresses your basically immobilized, with jump you can still run at your full speed +sprint/Hurdle/Swift.

Group Fly---- is just poor design given the other flaws of flight. Here we have a power where we can at will inflict on our team a 20% accuracy penalty, the inability to use a small selection of powers starting with rest, and a movement speed debuff on anyone useing any travel power other than flight, since you can neither run nor jump while flying. I would like to see it changed to a click power that hit your team with a buff that grants a temporary power that the recipient can then use for a set time at will rather than simply being subjected to it---heck, make it 'grant flight' and leave it a single target buff. 99% of the problems involved with it go away. One change to pet AI to make them prefer flight to other movement abilities if it's available leaves it functoinality in place for masterminds.

Other travel balance changes:

Sprint should be changed to +spd rather than +run and +jump. It is unfair that Speeders and Jumpers can get this free, unsupressable boost to their mode of travel, but flyers not only are slowed below normal walking speed but lose this power too.

Fitness:Swift should also be changed to +speed. This eliminates the need for 2 fitness powers that do the same thing to 2 different travel powers, and includes the third in with it. What used to be hurdle could be called 20/20 Vision and be an Auto power that is +perception and +Range. This includes teleport in the innate boost catagory, but is deserving of a second power as this would also improve practically all ranged attacks with it, not to mention help see through stacked stealth. While I was tinkering, given the changes that ED wrought, I'd combine Health and Stamina into one power as well, but replacing the resist in health to End Drain resist---then you could 6 slot it for 3 of each. You could then add Discipline, Mag 3 or so Resist to Sleep, Hold, Stun and Confuse at either 14 or 20---probably 20. No one would say it's 'required' like stamina, but everyone but maybe the melee would want it. Alternatively, I could go for a self-rez here too.

PS: Glide. Great idea and actually fairly easy to put in. Just give it the same physics as the downward arc of Superjump... but slow down the rate of fall so as to get an actual gliding effect. I have no idea where to put it though, Perhaps a future Gadget Pool, or a new Flight based power pool "jetpack", as one of the beginning powers, With it's other powers being the attack 'Strafe' (Almost single-file Cone, 20 yard range machine gun attack), the Travel power being "Jet Boost" (The 'jump' portion of Superjump, but usable in mid air as well to gain altitude, requiring Glide to have air control.) the final power could be "Loan Jetpack" to grant the pack to others for flight. So ultimatly what you get is a long distance controlled fall with boosts of altitude at will, and that classic double line of machine gun fire seen in millions of movies, including Batman---though he somehow missed the Joker with it. Oh, and spare packs to give your friends.