Grey Pilgrim

Oh, goody. So glad they're letting us have so many trays when they charge as much as they do per tray. As long as the prices stay as they are (and a 25% sale still keeps them over 1k points), this feature gets an "mmmhmm, that's nice," from me. I like having an extra tray on test, but it's not THAT nice.

By uber tough, what exactly do you mean? Do you mean your ability to take damage? That's usually what people mean by "tough," and SR is going to be weaker in that regard than other sets. It's trivially easy to build gobs of positional defense with it, but you are going to notice hits more when they get in. That said, my level 36 SR/Staff Tanker has had no issues tanking for large teams up until that point (on the TFs available to that point: most recently a Katie Hannon TF). At this point, getting Aid Self almost seems silly, but I'm sure he'll want it in Incarnate content so I'll keep it in the build.

But you seem to be discussing damage more. Why are you just looking at what the orange numbers say (and by that, I mean the large amounts of orange numbers that add up)? Look at how many attacks you have to use. Between Guarded Spin and Eye of the Storm, +0 and +1 minions are dead or nearly dead (depends on procs and forms and all that). That's not quite as good as Burn + Fire Sword Circle, but that's still quite good for AOE. It's certainly as good and satisfying as Crowd Control + Shatter, which is a good AOE combo for War Mace.

I obviously haven't gotten to Sky Splitter on Live, but I did have it on Test, and I didn't notice anything out of line for Staff's ST damage in the 40s. It's not as good as Fiery Melee, sure, but that's as it should be. Nothing to cause the alarm I'm seeing in this thread. Yeesh, I get too busy at the end of the semester and the Tanker Forum has gone to the Americans! when it comes so Staff Fighting.

Seriously... Staff opens up its AOE and ST capability well before other well known tanker sets (War Mace is less than awesome for AOE before level 35, and ST isn't all that great for Fire Melee before 35), so that's one nice thing when it comes to leveling. And as I pointed out above, it's doing fine in its performance for me. Looking at its numbers in CoD, it doesn't seem particularly out of whack for its damage numbers, plus it does decent debuff and mitigation.

Really, my biggest worries are whether I should pick up Innocuous Strikes or not. I'd probably have to drop an ST attack for it, though, since I don't see its damage quite beating out the mitigation from Guarded Spin and Eye of the Storm, particularly for my SR Tanker.

Not really, it's a typical Ham post. This comment is almost equivalent to wondering if Mental Giant will buy the next new item on the Paragon Market. The only people that would do such a thing are those unfamiliar with the player.

Certain procs being worthless under the old formula is a kind of fair argument for the change, I guess. Some procs were bad with the old system because of how weak they were designed, but as you said, longer recharge powers made procs less worth slotting. That gives me more reason for why there is a good change to the system with this.

However, the old system was a lot more clear and easy to follow. PPM and how it is described with procs is terribly done and confusing, and not all entirely because of the language associated with them. "Procs 20 or 30% of the time" is a lot easier to grasp than all the formulating going behind this change. I suppose it's inevitable to balance how differently recharged things are, but I guess I didn't have an issue with procs going more in low recharge powers and less in long recharge ones.

Is there any worry that this change will make procs TOO powerful? I see some of the rates being quoted using the formula, and they seem ridiculously high. Maybe it's just my background with procs, but having a better chance for it to go off than not (or almost 100%) seems a bit on the strong side. Just curious.

Those recipes that cap at 30 are really worth lowering a bit just for the price. Even though there should be more recipes at level 30 (due to how random rolls work), level 30 recipes are usually a huge amount more in cost on the AH.

I personally thought it was... weird (to put it nicely) that they even put the PPM system in place. Procs were well established, and other than well known procs that didn't work or work well, the system was fine. It seems like a lot of dev time is now being wasted on this system that could have been put elsewhere if they hadn't tried to add a new (and unneeded) system.

I'm okay with the changes if it still allows for people to build and benefit from slotting for recharge and procs in a power. Frankly, I doubt most people are going to even notice a huge change with this, unless they were leveraging issues with how SBE procs were working.

All the same, I didn't and don't see the need for the new system.

I feel your pain, good sir. I teach, and I have had a student ask me a question that I literally just answered for the class when it was asked by another student. The ability of humans to misread and obfuscate anything they read or hear is beyond imagining.

But hey, it's Friday! We can all breath deep and relax.

Would a better phrasing be "if these procs are under-performing in comparison to other, similar procs after the switch over I will buff them"? That's a little more precise to what you mean, I believe. Otherwise underperform is subjective.

On the mechanics of this, my two cents. I rather dislike that the proc system seems to be getting more complicated after all these years of being in another state. I'm sure we'll roll with the changes now (and really, a proc is often helpful in the old and new system, so you really only have to worry about the mechanics in extreme min/max cases), but it does bug me a bit.

I am, however, most in favor of all the procs getting looked at and making sure they work well. Some are just useless (Triumphant Insult's chance for a Mag 2 stun? Absolute Amazement's chance for -to hit? Besides others that have been mentioned) and have been needing a look for years.

The dev team that was around at I13 isn't really around anymore, other than a few people. And the changes made then weren't what were entirely planned by Castle at the time, from what I remember of his posts on the subject. So try to be a little fair, though I can't blame any PvPer for being annoyed at the lack of attention that part of the game has received since then.

As for the proc changes and how it affects any gameplay, especially PvP, that's part of playing an MMO. Power tweaks affect everyone in any MMO I've seen, and especially so in PvP. If you're going to PvP, you have to adapt. Your post seems more like a "I wanna keep things the same no matter what," and not particularly adaptive.

And blech, if PvP is that focused on procs right now, I'm much less interested in it. Not my cuppa tea.

Unless they are purples, ATOs, or store bought sets, they will stop working within three levels of the level of the enhancement. That's why I don't get why people like to slot level 50 (non-purple) IOs. I like to be able to exemp, and slotting 50s mean you are out of luck for a huge swath of content. I go for a happy medium between enhancement numbers and exemping, getting recipes in the level 30ish range. That lets me exemp from Moonfire up while still having access to IO boosts (I mostly play blueside).

Now, if by grayed out you mean "the power is no longer accessible and I'm no lower than three levels from the level of the enhancement" I believe you are correct.

Think that's a quote from someone else. I've seen it around a fair amount. Quite funny and true, though!

When I went to Vancouver, I'm still not sure if a waitress was messing with us, but she seriously acted like she did not understand what I meant by soda, pop, or soft drink. Our B & B owner was wondering what was wrong with her, but the waitress never cracked a smile about it or laughed with co-workers, so who knows what was up with her.

By the by, I grew up saying pop, as Minnesota is definitely a "pop" zone. I say soda now because that's what my wife says, and it just sounds better to me. Not sure why... but "pop" just sounds lame or kiddy now.

That's the thing, though, they could keep that aspect and still open it to teams. I wish they would do that.

I'm keen on a new slot as well, though I hope they rework and balance Hybrid a lot from what it is now. It has a lot of issues right now.

Me too... the concept art made them look fine on their own. The combo thing is terrible... and the axe part clips with most costume shoulders on my Macer.

There are issues with them showing even concept art too early. If you saw a recent posting of the Celestial concept art, there are pieces there that were not implemented (there was a shield, and separate axes and maces). Seeing it just makes me wish there had been those, and almost makes it worse.

Still, you would think they would be ready. I23 is kind of weird, in that it feels opened to beta prematurely with them not showing everything. But then they seem to have a date they are really shooting for, from other posts. Not sure that's a good thing.

I'm not sure why any missions are solo only. Just make the leader/owner of the mission call the shots, and teams are fine. Not like this doesn't happen with some missions already (hello, Trapdoor!). First Ward has some of the same "not friendly for teams" issues, which confuse me at this stage in the game's development. If there weren't these issues, I'd be just fine with those zones for teams, and actually find them fun.

After leveling my last few characters through DFB and blueside stuff, I'm ready to try some Praetoria again. It's nice to have different options... just wish they were set up better.