Leo_G

Nope.

Either a Pokemon or some character from a JRPG (pick one...Dragon Quest, maybe).

I'd say, use Power Siphon when you know you can leverage it by the duration of the fight (i.e. Power Siphon lasts 20 sec and each buff for the attacks lasts 10 sec, so you'll have a good hardy buff around the 15sec mark and still have a moderate bonus at the 25 sec mark). Basically, use it at the start of a fight knowing you'll ramp up at some point halfway through Power Siphon.

And if the fight won't last that long, look forward into ways to leverage that buff by moving faster before you initially engage.

That said, I'd agree with others who say KM is really good for Stalkers. With the mechanic to get 100% crit on Burst, 100% chance to recharge BU with Concentrated Strike and the ATO which will very often rehide you (depending what attack you put it in) so that you can trigger those odds, it's a pretty involved playstyle.

That said, I still think there's advantages to having a Scrapper with KM too. Like a Brute, you can ramp up damage auras *while* you're pounding things. There's other synergies you can build to leverage too:

-KM has inherently low ToHit bonuses because it lacks BU and only gets 7% ToHit from Power Siphon...so pair it with Invulnerability for the extra ToHit from Invincibility.

-KM has easily leveraged damage buffs which can be oversaturated by more damage buffs (eventually capping)...so pair it with Fiery Aura and its extra fire added on by Fiery Embrace which will also be buffed by Power Siphon.

-Or you can capitalize on that damage buff with more damage buffs via Shield Defense and let loose with buffed up Shield Charge as well.

-Or make up for inherent debuffs (Granite Armor).

To make another point about why the situation is the way it is is how the sets themselves are formed. The disparity is between melee sets and ranged sets...

For mitigation, the secondary effects tend to be balanced well enough however there are many (too many) outliers that put this difference in question. Sure, there are comparables like Energy Melee's Stun and Sonic's Screech as having the same stun effect, but you'll be hard pressed to find a whole ranged set whose 2ndary effect is hard mez to stack with it. Then melee sets have more outliers like Hand Clap, Fault and Touch of Fear that can provide superior mitigation or Clobber and Cobra Strike who can provide good control and superior damage. Ranged sets have their outliers too, like Siren's Song which provides superior mitigation and Atomic Burst that provides good control and superior damage, but there are far fewer outliers for ranged than for melee and on top of that, the outliers they do get are still not as good as the outliers available for melee.

And on top of all that, Blasters tend to get stilted for mitigation for no apparent reason...like, why is their version of Touch of Fear in Darkness Manipulation weaker than the melee version?

Then we can talk about damage. The melee sets tend to have sets modeled well for performing great at damage with tier 9s that aid their overall performance. They tend to have more high powered attacks with a cache of utility built into them, and bring out the full potential of them through bonuses, boosts and manipulating AI.

For ranged, the sets themselves are awkward, with different ranges, interruptible 'utility' attacks, low powered mezzes and a nuke that may crash you. Sure, Blasters (*possibly*) have melee ranged attacks to outfit a better chain of damage but there goes that awkwardness again with different ranges. Where Blasters are suppose to be aided by using range to their advantage, they are instead penalized by doing less damage for using that range.

Then there's buffs. Melees are gifted with a plethora of buffs built into their attacks like Dark Consumption, Soul Drain, Siphon Life, Parry, Defensive Sweep, etc. They also have damage buffs that gear them to higher regular sustained damage like Power Siphon, Follow Up and again Soul Drain.

Blast sets are not gifted with an equivalent of Soul Drain...or with a Parry and comparable powers to something like Siphon Life do less damage and heal for less. They're penalized because they are ranged.

It's because the set is ranged it gets penalized...but the thing is, melee gets *rewarded* for being melee ranged too...on top of the capabilities melee ranges can perform at...

AND Blasters are *further* penalized for secondary effect, mez duration, quality of effect, buff strength and so on just because they're blasters.

I'm not trying to say turn Blasters into [insert AT] but I can at least admit they get short changed for effects while having their mods cut short and penalized for available effects because they are 'the AT that's functionally armorless'.

It takes more than just fixing ranged sets in general...one needs to address the awkwardness of the AT as well...the odd ranged switches, the crashing or non-mid-battle attacks, the powers that just don't work properly like Time Bomb, any offensive aura that gets turned off at the drop of any mez, so on and so forth.

I would also add in learning about the enemy in-depth. There's just some things you can't learn about the foe's, their abilities and their AI unless you experience them in different ways.

IMO, players that experience the game in a multitude of ways turn out to be better players in the long run/in general than players that focus on a narrow avenue of play such as in min/maxing.

If you played pre-buff Stalkers to any length and perfected using interruptible powers mid combat, you can do special things with the interrupt window that you cannot do if you don't clock in time trying things. There's also timing of attacks/enemy attacks with animation times (cause you used placate a bit) as well as disrupting foe actions and what not.

Same with players that strive with current Blasters. It's one thing to be able to min/max a blaster to solo spawns and farm maps like the rest, and it's another thing to *play* the game to *get* to that point. Blasters aren't easy but if you can manage to excel at one, just think how awesome you'd be if you pulled off a Dom or Corrupter with AoE mitigation to boot? Same goes for knowing what foes use what attacks and mezzes. If you're invulnerable to mez, most likely you won't even try to memorize that type of enemy's chain of attacks. A lot can be learned by not playing the game straight.


As for the project, houtex, if you're aiming to maximize use out of brawl/pool attacks, you can always look into sets that have higher innate global benefits while straying from sets that don't.

Example:
-Fire Armor might be an interesting choice since I think Fiery Embrace also adds fire damage to pool attacks.
-Energy Aura has a -rech foe aura that also grants you +rech.
-Ice Armor and EA have drain powers that can wear out foes while building your defense greatly all while enfeebling foes' recharge.
-Stay away from Kinetic Melee as Power Siphon only adds a tiny bit of ToHit and can only add damage by using Kinetic Melee attacks.
-Super Strength might be an interesting choice since Rage boosts damage and ToHit for longer but with a period of inactivity.
-Titan Weapons is a no-no. Build Momentum has a seemingly long animation time compared to standard Build Ups and provides less +dmg than BU while the burst of momentum does nothing for outside powers.
-If we're only using special powers as sources for damage while retaining other mitigation powers, what about damageless effects like Hand Clap, Fault, Touch of Fear, Lightning Clap and so on? Ice Melee for BU and Ice Patch might be a very good combo if you're using Jump Kick as well. Throw in a secondary that either adds more functionality/power to jump kick (like Fiery Embrace) or one that offers extra mitigation (Invulnerability) and I could see that working pretty smoothly.

As for what to do until lvl 4, you could always do badges or auto-complete missions until you get there...or like you said, just ask someone to Plvl you to 4.

Now I did separate the statement about childish whining and stating a preference. Those were two different paragraphs.

As for countering your point, I remember supporting the notion that having lots of clicks has its downside, but I suggested making a point of it for future incarnate slots. Because to retroactively squeeze a preference into something not deemed to be the proper direction doesn't help anyone, you're either left with a particularly restrictive clickie or a boring, unimpressive passive few care about (less).

I was always told listening is a two-way street.

Perhaps the devs responded to and *really* were listening so made changes accordingly. The ones shouting to get their way perhaps were ignored because that's rarely a positive and productive path to take, giving whining children what they want.

But then I never found the argument 'I don't want more buttons to click' as very provocative a point to sway the people actually putting in the work making this junk. It's a preference, sure, but one seated backwards in the very objective of the game itself.

Lol Shut your mouth, EG. I can tell you now, most of my incarnates can't but then most don't actually pick up powers for plugging holes. My Storm corruptor still drops off endurance even with ageless and my Claws/EA brute *needs* Energy Drain otherwise he's sucking wind...he's even sucking wind *with* ED and has to slow down occasionally since its recharge might not be up exactly when he needs it.

But as for Hybrid being disappointing or not, I'm just going to point out that they can still be changed or added to. As mentioned before, people still have ideas for various hybrids. I'm actually liking the stealth idea as one could figure out a means to make a Blaster/Sniper hybrid out of that if you so wish or a Melee/Paladin hybrid with a healing/support option.

Just wanted to make a comment: Locking powers behind other powers is how powers *should* work. I shouldn't be able to get Eagle's Claw without getting at least 1 other Martial Arts power. Same with any set and game, really. Prerequisites is how you stop people from just grabbing the best powers from every pool and outfitting their build with only the best powers. It's a measure to force you to choose some rather than all.

Also, this isn't those other MMOs where we have Heal Minor Wounds, Heal Wounds and Heal Major Wounds all as 3 separate powers you have to choose and the lower powers are limited in actual use. In our game, all that non-sense is rolled into one. There are no weaker tier powers that lead up to 'the good stuff'. Which makes me scratch my head with people mention Aid Self being locked behind unrelated powers.

Would you rather the tier 1 be Minor Aid Self, a click 1/4 the power of Aid Self then have tier 2 be Major Aid Self which is only 3/4 the power of Aid Self so that you have to take both to equal what we have now? The reason a prerequisite may not seem 'related' is because each power functions at full capacity for its capability.

Interesting idea. Didn't think of that.

But It'd probably lean to something like a +Regen aura with a temp power heal and +absorb. Maybe add +recovery to that aura.

For a stealth hybrid, a +def self buff and 2 click temp powers: self stealth and assassination attack. Self stealth doesn't wear off when you attack but would last a short duration instead and wouldn't take long to come back. Assassination attack would only be usable during the self stealth. Using any attacks from that self stealth grants high chance for double hit while the assassination attack does moderately high ST dmg and debuffs the target (might be -regen or something).

*shrugs*

I think it has more to do with the amount of effect the powers you're aiming for have and how valued they are to a build. Tough is a decent chunk of resistance to common damage types and Aid Self is a handy self heal. Apparently the devs think those powers can add quite a bit to many builds while apparently you guys find either power a wash. In the dev's thinking, gaining both advantages for 4 power picks is fair while you guys think 2 is adequate. Then I'd have to ask just how weak you think these powers are? It's about choice? Okay, well what about balance?

Aid Other provides stun protection, I thought. But Aid Other has lots of uses. NPC allies are all over the game. Sometimes, the survival of NPCs is tied to mission completion. There have been many times I wish I could hand an NPC a few inspirations (I don't even think team inspirations work on them). You can buff them with Leadership or protect them with taunt but if you don't have healing powers, more often than not, NPCs go down which can be a problem for heroes that actually try to *save* people they run into and not let them die for your cause.

To be fair, I'm not poking holes at his suggestion. A buff to caps or an adjustment to mods is all well and good but it'll only help those that it helps...and not help those that it won't...if you can get what I'm saying.

No, what I was arguing with Butane was his argument for his change. Comparing Tankers to Superman, how their role isn't actually 'comix' and how 'Brute terk err bffz'. None of that makes any difference to me. I don't care that Brutes kicked you in the nads and took your Fury or that aggro ain't in comic books or that no existing media character fits Tankers. I doubt there's a real-comic example of a Soldier of Arachnos or Kheldian either since, you know, they're unique to our game.

So yeah, don't care for trying to shoehorn Tankers to be comic book 'bricks' or what have you...just make them fun, unique, and remain focused on what they do. Keep em like they are, for all I care. I enjoy my Tankers *because* they're not offensive focused. What offense they're capable of (and they're capable of a decent amount) is just gravy to me.

Even pets are limited to the same aggro caps for AI enemies. The only way to buff Tanker's aggro cap is to give them pets that are targetable by enemies...or raise the aggro cap of everyone.

Although it might be possible to formulate an algorithm that increases everyone's aggro cap to something like 24 or some number but have threat dramatically taper off at the 15-18 foe marker so that it's *hard* to aggro that many unless there just isn't many players around to attract it. Make it so it literally takes taunt to do it...but that comes with consequences. I'd say the character who could either attract the most attention (taunt/gauntlet) or can affect the most foes at a time (most likely (de)buffers, crowd control and pet classes) get the aggro. So yeah, that'd be an overall nerf for those types if they cannot survive the extra attention.

That said, the reason I suggested altering Tanker AoEs is because it's been shown that *powers* can have their target cap raised...it's shown in Judgement powers who have varying target caps depending on which branch you take. So it's not directly increasing the Tanker aggro cap, but as foes go down, it's all about who's affecting more foes...and if those AoEs have mitigation tied in them like KD or debuffs, you're indirectly protecting teammates those foes might be shooting at.