GamesWalker

Burn has been reduced to a shadow of it's former self. Now for some numbers to back up my claim (all on test).

Using Hasten. Burn (6 slot), Taunt all with white SOs. Went into a mission with and found 5 plus +1 Crey (Infiltrators, i.e. no resists). Just using burn and taunt and pulling mobs around a corner it too 1 minute 56 seconds to defeat them.

2nd Test using only Whirling Hands (6 slotted), Hasten, Taunt. Reset the mission and found the same 5 guys. It took 1 minute 30 seconds to defeat them. Whirling hands is a mediocre PBAoE but it was more effective (time wise) than Burn currently is. This makes Burn with it's scatter almost worthless.

3rd test Added Build Up to the Whirling Hands test, < 45 seconds to defeat the 5 Infiltrators.

With these results I can not justify having Burn in my Fire /EM tanks build. Burn used to be the major attack for the character and now it can't even compete with an attack I didn't take on the live servers (as it didn't fit in the build due to slots, power picks, and mediocre damage).

I would rather have a Fire/Fire tank now as Fire has better AoEs than Energy but I choose Fire/EM for the mix of AoE (Burn) and single target damage but now I no longer have effective AoE damage. But ther is no Respec for an AT so now I am stuck with a character I never planned for.

Changing powers to such an extent as to change the whole focus of a character is a horrible design change. These sort of changes will cause a drop in player morale and therefore cause a faster drop rate of the player base over time.

On top of all of this the players shouldn't have to spend time performing tests to show problems with the changes. I would rather spend time playing the game not testing wild balance changes to the game.

You are forgetting SuperHero 2044, the first point based system (with modifiers) that came out before Champions. I lost my copy of this game but some of it's concepts are what Champions used in a much more polished/playable format.

As one of those that has been in the game industry since 1982 I find CuppaJo's advice to be very sound.

Taking a design from the first stages of inspiration to the final product is a major undertaking that is one of hardest and challenging jobs you will every take on. And you can't do it alone, you will work with at couple of dozen people on a small project (i.e. my latest effort Gary Grigsby's World at War) to massive teams on large scale projects such as role-playing games and MMORPGs (i.e City of Heroes).

MindMaster is correct in what he has stated. A power that scatters the enemies is a bad power. We want them all bunched up for many many reasons but the bottom line is scattered Mobs take longer to arrest. (I too think knockback is a disadvantage except for that solo blaster, knockdown and Knockup are so far superior to knockback it's almost a joke trying to compare them).

The reason very few Illusion controllers took the original ST was that it caused the enemy to scatter. If the devs give it scatter via runners, illusion controllers will avoid taking it and respec out of it (the few unlucky ones like myself who thought they were actually going to give us a useful power).

I agree with Hanged Man, any power that scatters the enemy is bad. Unless the power provides other major benefits (such as good amounts of damage) the power is worthless in my opinion. ST as described by Geko sounds like it will end up worthless. If ST scatters the enemy I will respec out of it for sure.

I used a respec to get ST when it was causing th enemy to cower (even with the drawback of getting all that aggro). Now I am very disappointed with the way ST is going as it appears to be heading towards the 'reject power' group, i.e. fleeing enemies. In the end it will have cost me two respecs if ST ends up with fleeing mobs, what a waste.

From my experience playing CoH (44 Ill/Rad, 34 Fire/EM, 35 DM/Inv) I have found that the more you can cluster the MoBs the better. The reason is that there are so many useful AoE powers (damage, holds, debufs etc) and you want to hit as many enemies as possible. Any power that scatters the enemy is a weaker power than one that does not (yes I think knockback powers are weaker than a straight damage powers, the advantage gained by knockback is negated by the scattered enemy).

If ST scatters the enemy in any way or form it will be so situational as to be useless. In any normal battle you want the energy torrents from the Phantasams to hit as many targets as possible, ST with runners will make it a hunt and kill each one individualy which is the worst thing possible for Illusion controllers. Also any debuf powers (Rad set for example) will negated by the scattered Mobs. If ST has runners it will end up in the discarded powers pile (with Fallout).

The addition of the 3rd tray and it's suggested bindings sound great.

I have a higher level Ill/Rad controller (42nd) level and I 'll give you a few of my observations of the Rad set. I SK with higher level people in my SG (mostly to fight AVs) therefore I have seen alot of the higher level content.

First some numbers:

EF increases the damage by 30% (40% for a defender). This is by lowering the Mob's resistance, high resist Mobs get lowered less. Actual resist is EF x (1-Mob resistance) therefore a Mob with 50% resistance is only going to be debuffed by 1/2 of EFs rati ng.

RI on a controller reduces a Mobs accuracy by 30%. (Defenders are 40% if I remember correctly).

AM gives +.33 End recovery (stamina is only +.25), +.25 damage, and +.3 recharge. AM does not offer any Mag protection against Mez attacks, it only reduces the time they are active on the protected character. This means you will lose your toggles.

Alpha strikes are going to be your downfall, that and AoE Mez attacks (Malta come to mind) as they could crash enough toggles to allow full strength AoE attacks to smash your group. To protect yourself from these sort of attacks I would get some */Rad controllers, they have pets that can take the alpha or Mez the bad guys first. This would keep the Rad theme and make the team safer.

About slotting, I would slot for the ability to solo or play in a small team. Even doing this all of the big Rad abilities will be slotted up enough (or fully) for the synergy of the large group to kick in.

That being said an eight man */rad controller or Rad/* defender group is massive overkill (except vs Hamidon). Arguing what sort of combo of these is best is like arguing about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. From my experience two well built */Rad controllers can take any AV (within +2 levels, the debuffs drop off rapidly in effectiveness after that) in the game, adding more Rad anything just reduces the time it would take to vaporize the AV.