Krystalee

[ QUOTE ]
We'll also be tuning down Trolls and Outcasts even more - to make them like Skulls and Hellions (fewer powers, etc.).

[/ QUOTE ]

I like the new outcasts/trolls. They are a major pain to fight and a serious challenge. My only thought is maybe they need to spawn in slightly smaller numbers. I really like the fact that they are truly the next step up from Skulls/Hellions. They force a whole different strategy on your combat. I was running some of the Hollows missions with my mind controller last night and found myself infinitely more useful. Stunning Bricks and Shockers to make them lower their toggles was very nice.

Currently they are being spawned as if they were skulls/hellions, so the quantities are a little high. That's where the real problem comes since they have a strong variety of attack types. If you reduce the numbers by 20% or so I think it will be a nice balanced tough and challenging spawn group.

Also the Outcast Chargers might stun a little too often. They seem to hit with a short duration stun about 25% of the time.

The Babbage Machine was a totally clockwork computing device. He designed but never built it, if I'm not mistaken. Kind of like Davinci and the helicoptor.

[ QUOTE ]
In the case of making the higher level game more fun, I want to make the difficulty of the later levels resemble early gameplay. At first, some players will decry "but I can't do what I used to! Ack! I can't solo two +4 bosses anymore?" True - but they'll have fun battling 3 white minions - which is something you can say at level 15, but not at level 35. Long term, the entire game will sparkle once this sort of balance is restored - because so much of the game design hangs upon it.


[/ QUOTE ]

Someone already mentioned it but I want to reinforce it. There are indeed builds of every archetype that can solo. But the vast majority of builds for controllers can not solo effectively past level 12. It is NOT worth spending six times the gameplay to gain the same amount of skill as every other AT. There are even some builds that can not solo period. An Ice/Storm controller for example can not take a group of 3 grays.

It would be helpful if you would quit touting that any AT can solo and be upfront and honest at character creation time, warning people that this build will not be able to function outside of the team environment.

Now with all that being said it is also extremely dangerous for these characters to even try to cross a zone set for thier level because there are so many things that can one or two hit kill them.

My concern is that you will make it even more impossible to play these characters because they can't survive. I'm just asking you to be careful in ramping up the difficulty of higher level spawns. Don't have a knee jerk reaction because some ATs are cakewalking high level spawns.