PirateCrew

The conversion has basically been finished. I will periodically monitor the old channel as people who have been away log in and may need help to move.

Virtue TFs 2010 now has about 250 accounts online/unhidden at peak times, quite active as channels go.

Please contact me in game if you have questions; I doubt I'll return to this thread to update/review further posts.

Virtue TFs 2010 is now the primary channel for Taskforces/Strikeforces and similar activities, with 250 online at peak times. The conversion process was finished a bit early and the old channel has been closed.

We've made good progress on the channel conversion; roughly 95% of all accounts active on a daily basis in the old channel are also in the new channel. The new channel also has many new members (who wouldn't have fit into the old one), so it has about 50% more people online at any given time, with 20-50 events recruiting every day.

At this time, we're entering the final phase of conversion - removing accounts from the old Virtue TFs channel, so our new channel can be the one-stop-shop for recruiting for TFs, SFs, and trials. Of course, we welcome Hami & Mothership raid info and other merit-related team recruiting.

This final phase involves two parts:
1) asking people to leave the channel (requested in the MOTD) from today until Friday February 12th, and then...
2) Periodic "waves" of kicking accounts from the old channel once I double check that they are in the new channel. This will repeat at least once daily through March 5th, and will be announced in channel five minutes prior to the kick wave.

To leave the channel - and save me some work - you can do either of the following:
Type into the chat bar: /leavechan "Virtue TFs"
or
Right-click in chat window to open a menu -> "Leave Channel" -> "Virtue TFs"


Thank you, moderators and channel members, for making the conversion very successful so far!

Based on a bit more research into what "private mode" does to a channel, it's less severe of a move than I thought. I've set the channel to private mode earlier than in the original plan, which should have the following beneficial effects:

1. It will not appear in the channel search. This should prevent confusion over which channel a new user should try to join, especially while Virtue TFs still has more online members at this early stage of conversion.

2. Users cannot join/rejoin the old channel without a moderator's invite. As some people leave the Virtue TFs channel (having already joined Virtue TFs 2010 and to free up space in their global channel list), a few open spaces will reappear in the old channel, giving the impression that it is not full. It's better to leave these unfilled (with moderator discretion for exceptions) to encourage a quick conversion back to a single TF channel, than to keep refilling the channel repeatedly for years until it is entirely composed of inactive members.


Here are some additional interesting facts about channels:
- A channel can have a maximum of 2500 accounts subscribed
- In Virtue TFs, between 1500 and 1800 subscribers are inactive
- The moderators cannot clear these inactives unless their names are known (and they are not).
- Virtue TFs 2010 should not fill up for several years, at the current rate of joining and inactives.


Thanks, Virtue TFs subcribers, for your patience.

Due to the number of inactive members in the Virtue TFs channel, I created the new channel "Virtue TFs 2010" and the moderators have started the conversion process.

The process includes:

Jan 29th - Feb 2th
5 days of raising awareness and encouraging people to join the new channel. Please broadcast in both channels to make sure everyone can hear about your task and strike forces.

Feb 3rd - March 5th
30 days of "countdown" before setting the channel to private mode on March 5th. Please broadcast in the new channel, but feel free to remain in the old channel to hear broadcasts by those who have not yet had time to jump into the new channel.

After March 5th
Virtue TFs 2010 is the place to go for TF/SF teaming. The old channel will not be joinable and other channel settings may be adjusted to direct everyone to the new channel.


Channel MOTDs will be updated frequently to keep you informed of the schedule and how it may affect you.

Thanks and see you in game!

"Virtue TFs" channel filled (with many inactive members) as of 2010-01-29.

I created the replacement channel "Virtue TFs 2010" and we'll be updating the MOTD with the conversion schedule.

The basic plan is, 5 days of voluntary invitation to switch, followed by a 30-day countdown to setting the old channel to private mode - around March 5th. We'll encourage broadcasting for Task and Strike forces in both channels until we've got most everyone switched over to the shiny new 2010 version.

If you need to discuss the conversion, please use the thread http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=207497

So many alts....just too much fun with the costume creator and with Mid's planner, and I end up with:

Blasters
Archery/Mental, Fire/Elec, Ice/Elec, Energy/Energy, Psi/Energy

Controllers
Earth/FF, Ice/FF, Fire/FF, Plant/Storm, Ill/Storm, Ill/Rad, Fire/Kin

Defenders
Dark/Dark, Storm/Archery, FF/Rad, Kin/Elect, Rad/Sonic, Storm/Dark

Scrappers
MA/WP, MA/SR, Dark/WP, Katana/Dark, BS/Regen, Spines/Dark, Katana/WP, DB/Inv, DB/WP, Dark/Inv, Claws/Inv, Elec/Shield

Tanks
Shield/SS, WP/SS, Shield/Dark, Dark/Dark, Inv/Axe

HEATs
Human-form PB, triform WS

Villains
Robots/Dark MM, SS/SR Brute, SS/WP Brute, Dark/Shield Brute, Fire/Kin Corrupter, and more to come once Going Rogue is out...

Yes I actually like to play all of these, whenever I can! Each one is special and fun, and plays differently depending on the team and the mission/TF. I don't really have a "main" character.

Hope this gives others some ideas... ^_^

[ QUOTE ]

The only concerning part (to me) was the L54 Banes seemed to have their way with me as well which I wasn't too pleased with.


[/ QUOTE ]

I'm not 100% certain, but since the Banes are summoned by Lord Recluse, I believe they inherit some of his buffs. The 30% +tohit buff from the blue tower (which seemed to be inherited when my softcapped SR scrapper last faced them and LR) made 45% melee defense feel like 15%...and they hit hard.

Their level difference (+4) to us also amplifies any inherited +toHit over their base of 50%, since it gives them an accuracy boost against us at L50. As bosses, they get even more built-in accuracy boost.

Note: I was using combat logs to estimate their tohit buff, someone with a power analyzer could confirm/deny my observations (assuming the attribute monitor is correctly designed to show any inherited buffs).

I've been working on SD/DM tank and a DM/SD brute as well...still below L35 but already quite fun!

I've had the same experience for several weeks. The control-clicked power (a wide variety of powers on a wide variety of characters) gets stuck in the "ready to fire" state. The power can be clicked to force it to fire, or sometimes it will start firing automatically again after zoning or after moving around. The power seems to get stuck often when I visit trainers and markets, and less often in a mission instance.

[ QUOTE ]

[Admin] Attention! In 30 minutes, City of Heroes and City of Villains will go down for daily server maintenance. The


[/ QUOTE ]

server guys from Aion are here and they say our servers are being requistioned for the beta test. They have lots of guns. Please call 91

Hi....haven't teamed with you and Mrs O in a while but I remember some fun times in TFs and events. Good luck in whatever you do next!

Just bought the Aion preorder so will try to get into the 3rd Beta weekend. Hope to see you there!

I've seen a similar or identical problem playing on Virtue (almost nightly), Infinity (once a week~ish), and almost never on Champion.

As best I've been able to determine, there are a few sources for "lag":

[1] Server-side game time runs slower than real time. Powers appear to be charged (according to the client, which is running fine) but refuse to fire immediately and eventually you get "xxxx power is not yet recharged" error messages; everyone on the map or in the vicinity of a large player/enemy group is affected equally; even the enemies move and attack slower than normal. Enemies and players may appear and disappear, twist around after being defeated, run in place, and reappear far away after in-place running. See ITF Valley of Wandering CaLagula Legions and (sometimes) Talos Hill during Rikti invasions.

[2] Client-side PC hardware overloaded. Slow updating of the entire screen, animations for toggle powers (fire aura for example) are choppy. Ingame commands like /unloadgfx, PC upgrades, and closing extra programs can help this case but not the others. The /netgraph 1 command will be all-green during this type of lag, unless there are other problems too.

[3] Near-Client network delays and/or packet loss. Looks somewhat like [1], but you do *not* get the "power not recharged yet" error messages seen in [1]. It happens regardless of the region (east or west) of every server you try, and would likely affect web browsing and other online games. When on a team, you would be the only one who experiences the symptoms at a given moment, though other players in the same house or with the same ISP are affected depending on the exact nature of the problem. You can be easily affected by this during ordinary missions and soloing. This problem is caused by your router, wireless connection (if any), cables, ISP, or even the network nodes beyond your ISP. The /netgraph 1 command will show some yellow and red bars.

[4] Near-Server network delays and/or packet loss. Also looks somewhat like [1] and [3], but you do *not* get the "power not recharged yet" error messages seen in [1]. If you run two clients on the same computer, with one connected to a west coast server (e.g. Virtue) and another to an East Coast server (Infinity), their lag patterns will be different or one may have no lag. When on a team, multiple people are affected by the symptoms based on the network path from their computer to the server and which segment is the problem. You can be affected by this during ordinary missions and soloing, but the chances increase during in-game events or even periods of high internet activity in the servers' region (Infinity - east coast). The problem can be very close to the server (CoH's internet service provider, router, or even a network cable, card, or communication process running on the server). The /netgraph 1 command will show some yellow and red bars.

[5] Other. Not sure what fits in this category, but I can't prove it exists or doesn't.


Welcome to [3] or [4].

Personally, I had more success with IO set bonuses to typed defenses, since WP has no positional defense to build upon. I have a SS/WP and a EM/WP brute, and both have 41% Def to S/L and 32% Def to E/N. Note that many ranged and AoE attacks have a Smashing or Lethal component, so the 41% S/L defense guards fairly well against all positions - which means fewer status effects/slows/etc can hit me from range too. In melee, I'm softcapped against attacks with a S/L component due to the debuff in Rise to the Challenge, unless fighting an AV with debuff resistance.

Certain powerset are better off with positional bonuses since they either start with Positional (like /SR) or an equal amount of both (like /Dark).

Consider 4-5 sets of Kinetic Combat 4-slotted (depending on primary of the */WP brute and the attacks you choose), plus Reactive Armor 4 or 5 slotted and Eradication 3-slotted in every possible power. Kinetic Combat includes some nice 1.5% HP bonuses.

Add Combat Jumping, Tough, and Weave for even more durability. Ancillary pool attacks give you options to slot a good immobilize set (Enf Operation) and even debuff enemy ToHit/Dmg (Soul Mastery). Accolades for more HP are of course very helpful, and the Demonic accolade stacks perfectly with typed defense for emergencies.


My SS/WP, for example:

Villain Plan by Mids' Villain Designer 1.401
http://www.cohplanner.com/

[u]Click this DataLink to open the build![u]

Isle: Level 50 Magic Brute
Primary Power Set: Super Strength
Secondary Power Set: Willpower
Power Pool: Fighting
Power Pool: Leaping
Power Pool: Fitness
Power Pool: Speed
Ancillary Pool: Soul Mastery

Villain Profile:
Level 1: Punch -- KntkC'bat-Acc/Dmg:33(A), KntkC'bat-Dmg/EndRdx:34(3), KntkC'bat-Dmg/Rchg:33(5), KntkC'bat-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg:35(13), F'dSmite-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg:34(37)
Level 1: High Pain Tolerance -- S'fstPrt-ResDam/Def+:17(A), Heal-I:45(25), Heal-I:45(34), ResDam-I:40(40), ResDam-I:45(42)
Level 2: Haymaker -- KntkC'bat-Acc/Dmg:33(A), KntkC'bat-Dmg/EndRdx:34(3), KntkC'bat-Dmg/Rchg:33(5), KntkC'bat-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg:35(13), F'dSmite-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg:34(37)
Level 4: Fast Healing -- Heal-I:45(A), Heal-I:30(31)
Level 6: Boxing -- KntkC'bat-Acc/Dmg:33(A), KntkC'bat-Dmg/EndRdx:34(7), KntkC'bat-Dmg/Rchg:33(7), KntkC'bat-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg:35(15), F'dSmite-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg:34(37)
Level 8: Knockout Blow -- KntkC'bat-Acc/Dmg:33(A), KntkC'bat-Dmg/EndRdx:34(9), KntkC'bat-Dmg/Rchg:33(9), KntkC'bat-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg:35(11), S'ngH'mkr-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg:35(11), F'dSmite-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg:34(15)
Level 10: Indomitable Will -- DefBuff-I:45(A), DefBuff-I:40(40)
Level 12: Combat Jumping -- Ksmt-ToHit+:11(A)
Level 14: Mind Over Body -- RctvArm-ResDam:37(A), RctvArm-ResDam/EndRdx:35(23), RctvArm-ResDam/EndRdx/Rchg:37(23), RctvArm-ResDam/Rchg:37(36)
Level 16: Rise to the Challenge -- Heal-I:25(A), Heal-I:25(17), Heal-I:25(17)
Level 18: Rage -- RechRdx-I:25(A), AdjTgt-ToHit/EndRdx/Rchg:30(19), AdjTgt-ToHit:30(19), AdjTgt-Rchg:30(25), AdjTgt-ToHit/Rchg:30(27), AdjTgt-EndRdx/Rchg:30(27)
Level 20: Quick Recovery -- EndMod-I:30(A), EndMod-I:30(21), EndMod-I:30(21)
Level 22: Super Jump -- Winter-ResSlow:18(A), Winter-RunSpd/Jump/Fly/Rng:37(46)
Level 24: Swift -- Run-I:25(A)
Level 26: Health -- Heal-I:45(A)
Level 28: Heightened Senses -- DefBuff-I:40(A), DefBuff-I:40(29), LkGmblr-Rchg+:25(29)
Level 30: Stamina -- EndMod-I:30(A), EndMod-I:30(31), EndMod-I:30(31)
Level 32: Foot Stomp -- Erad-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg:30(A), Erad-Acc/Dmg/Rchg:28(33), Erad-Dmg/Rchg:28(33), Sciroc-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx:35(33), Sciroc-Acc/Rchg:37(34), Sciroc-Dmg/EndRdx:37(34)
Level 35: Tough -- RctvArm-ResDam:37(A), RctvArm-ResDam/EndRdx:38(36), RctvArm-ResDam/EndRdx/Rchg:37(36), RctvArm-ResDam/Rchg:37(40)
Level 38: Strength of Will -- RctvArm-ResDam:37(A), RctvArm-ResDam/EndRdx:35(39), RctvArm-ResDam/Rchg:37(39), RctvArm-ResDam/EndRdx/Rchg:35(39)
Level 41: Weave -- RedFtn-Def/EndRdx:38(A), DefBuff-I:45(42), S'dpty-Def/EndRdx:37(42)
Level 44: Soul Tentacles -- Enf'dOp-Acc/Immob/Rchg:38(A), Enf'dOp-EndRdx/Immob:38(45), Enf'dOp-Acc/EndRdx:38(45), Enf'dOp-Immob/Rng:38(45), Enf'dOp-Acc/Rchg:38(46), Enf'dOp-Acc/Immob:38(46)
Level 47: Dark Obliteration -- Det'tn-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx:39(A), Det'tn-Dmg/EndRdx:38(48), Det'tn-Dmg/Rchg:41(48), Det'tn-Acc/Dmg:38(48), Det'tn-Dmg/EndRdx/Rng:39(50), RechRdx-I:45(50)
Level 49: Hasten -- RechRdx-I:45(A), RechRdx-I:45(50)
------------
Level 1: Brawl -- KntkC'bat-Acc/Dmg:34(A), KntkC'bat-Dmg/EndRdx:28(43), KntkC'bat-Dmg/Rchg:33(43), KntkC'bat-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg:30(43)
Level 1: Sprint -- EndRdx-I:30(A)
Level 2: Rest -- RechRdx-I:25(A)
Level 1: Fury

I may replace Hasten with Darkest Night since the Soul APP was expanded.

Good luck.

I built a number of WP brutes, scrappers, and tanks with a 'maximum survival' goal, and found the following to be an extremely effective and low-cost way to build upon WP's strengths and fill some gaps too:

Tough, Weave, and if possible Combat Jumping

Melee single target powers - slot with 4 Kinetic Combat (I avoid the proc) plus Focused Smite A/E/R and A/D/R if you have enough slots. Each KinCom set gives 3.75% S/L def AND 1.5% HP. Slotting these in boxing and brawl can make sense if you have few ST melee attacks, to get the maximum stacking of 5 of these bonuses.

PBAoE powers - slot 3 SciDerv (for Neg Energy resist) + 3 Eradication (for 3.13% E/N Def per set). I've had good luck with a combo of SciDerv A/D/E + A/R + D/E or D/R, and Erad A/D/E/R + A/D/R + D/R.

Resistance powers - slot at least 4 Reactive Armor IOs for even more S/L and E/N Def. You probably already have a Steadfast Protection Res/+Def IO in your plan; I've used HPT slot #1 as a convenient place for it, leaving plenty of room for Healing and Resist IOs in the other 4-5 slots in HPT.

There are a few other good defense-boosting sets if you have ranged attacks, targeted aoe, immobilizes, etc... Thunderstrike 4-slot or 6-slot, Detonation 5-slot, and Enfeebled Operation are worth considering. I try to add 2-slotted Winter's Gift in a travel power for slow resistance and 5% Cold resist, and a Kismet +ToHit IO in combat jumping to help the "active defenses" from attacks with knockdowns and other secondary effects...

If you have enough slots to spare, try 2 high level ToHit Debuff IOs in RttC. Two of my brutes are soft-capped against S/L damage from normal enemies in the RttC effect. You probably are aware that an attack with two damage types uses your larger defense value...so this even softcaps against many attacks from energy, negative, fire, cold, and psi enemies!

Research the badge Accolades too, if you haven't already. The +HP ones (Born In Battle, High Pain Threshold, and Invader) are of course highly beneficial for WP. The Demonic Aura click accolade stacks with your own defenses and resists for 60 seconds of pure .


[Edit]
While set bonuses of Regen can help, I found the bonus amounts to be small compared to WP's regen from Fast Healing, RttC, and (if taken) Health. SciDerv sets do provide 10% regen for the 2nd slot, which helps a little.

Recharge is something I did not usually pursue in set bonuses for WP characters...there are no WP or pool defenses that benefit from recharge. Unless you have an incomplete attack chain after fully slotting your attacks with IO sets or major active-defense attacks such as SS/WP's footstomp, Recharge set bonuses may add little to your DB brute's survivability or damage.

Consider the casting time of Darkest Night (3.17sec) and whether it fits with your brute's playstyle. In normal encounters you may find it to be a waste of time, especially if you use the IOs mentioned above. In the cases where you would really want the DN debuffs (against an AV/Hero, monster, +3 Elite Boss), expect its ToHit and even its Damage debuff to be heavily resisted by the enemy's debuff resistance and level scaling. Just a thought. The Soul Mastery APP is a great choice overall for utility, casting speed, damage, secondary -ToHit effect, and IO slotting options
[/Edit]

[ QUOTE ]

The problem is simply the fact that the powersets come from players and are not really designed to work for mobs as well, due to the stacking issue. All of the powersets and especially their secndary effects work well when alone, or maybe two of them.

But then the standard spawn is not one or two mobs, it's about 10 of them in a team. So that means the little debuff can become huge, the little damage can become huge as well, and the bigger ones... well they become completely overpowered.

So when making a story arc i'm usually locked out of 90% of the powers available to mobs.

...


[/ QUOTE ]

Many excellent points.

Significantly reducing the effectiveness of debuffs and controls (mag and/or duration) especially for secondary effects and especially at the minion and lieutenant level is important so that custom mobs can be used more freely by architects who wish to create arcs of similar difficulty to normal PVE.

Filesize limits make it difficult to add enough variety to the spawns to prevent excessive debuff/control stacking. The ability to choose powers above a minimum may help if the minimum is set correctly, but it probably will not be enough.

Perhaps the Farm Reporters are farming the report button? Maybe even...
<.<
>.>
EXPLOITING IT?

Now we need a "Report Report-Button Exploiter" button so we can farm that too!

For details of this problem and the related experiments and data collection, see:
Ticket Drops / Solo vs Team

[ QUOTE ]

So that information has been available to everyone in this particular thread for at most 4 days now? Nearly 5 months after the fact?


[/ QUOTE ]

As a bit of backup for what you're saying, I and several other Illusion control players posted in the Invention section of the forum soon after I13 went live, regarding what we considered a bug in the RIP sets - that the accuracy and damage were not being applied to the pets (Phantom Army Decoys). I also bugged it in-game and received the normal "yes it's a bug" response from the support staff.

Everyone seemed to think it was a bug, and no posters corrected this notion. Now we learn from Castle that the RIP sets' effects on pets (Acc, Dmg, Rech) were intentionally left deactivated to avoid an unintended pet attack rate increase until some solution could be found. It was not listed in the known issues at the time, despite being a developer-known issue...

The simple fact is that very little information was made public at the time when it could be used by the players to determine what was really working as intended versus what was bugged.

[ QUOTE ]

One day, while discussing this, another programmer who was looking at AI issues came over and began talking to me about the fact that one of the issues causing aberrant AI behavior was the powers recharging too quickly.


[/ QUOTE ]

In an alternate universe:

"One day, while discussing this, another programmer who was looking at AI issues came over and began talking to me about the fact that one of the issues causing aberrant AI behavior was that the code wasn't written well enough to deal with variable power recharge times."

[ QUOTE ]

I just tested these awful changes using the ninjas. It doesnt help them at all. They still get stuck in the loop and spam darts. The only way they dont is if I use the goto aggressive command or teleport foe or if the critter closes to melee. Otherwise they just spam darts.


[/ QUOTE ]

Would you describe the other conditions and results in your test? For example:

Does their behavior on Test match their behavior on Live servers? If not, how is it different?
Which upgrades had you applied to the pets?
What enemies were you fighting?
What powers (if any) were you using, such as Tar Patch, immobilizes, holds, knockback powers...?
Were the pets or enemies on any unusual or uneven terrain?
Is there else that you think might be influencing the pets' behavior?

If you have already reported the issue elsewhere, please ignore this. I was going to test my Robots and Zombies tomorrow and it would help me to know if I should include certain test conditions.

[ QUOTE ]

If the powers are broken, then they're broken. If they get fixed and that makes them weaker then they should be. Then they should get rebalanced to make them good powers.


[/ QUOTE ]

I agree, to a certain extent; having been involved in software design I know there are some problems where the "it's broken we have to fix it" mentality is appropriate. However...

Implement a reasonable solution *simultaneously* with changes to mitigate the side effects, such as buffs to certain pets. Rebalancing doesn't need to wait; it can be based on numerical adjustments to a previously-mined dataset, on testing under conditions that simulate post-fix gameplay, and on discussion between the players and developers.

The pseudopets most posters are discussing could not be targetted and were not directly affected by recharge debuffs. If the player was suffering from a recharge debuff at the time the pseudopet was summoned, then that recharge debuff would be passed through to a subset of those pseudopets.

However, a number of factors combine to leave this a net loss for many pseudopet users.
1) Hasten's recharge buff is large, long-lasting, and common
2) Team buffs such as AM and SB are seen fairly often
3) Pseudopets are often summoned prior to battle when no debuffs are on the player
4a) Pseudopet summoners (blasters, defenders, controllers) on teams are less likely to get aggro from multiple stacking or one large recharge debuffer(s)
4b) Pseudopet summoners soloing are likely to control, debuff, or defeat recharge debuffers before the recharge debuffs can hit
5) Set IO users could see additional benefits, but this was less common knowledge.

There will be some cases where the benefit of recharge debuff immunity outweighs the lost damage/control, but my pseudopet-using characters will almost never experience those cases. Players who intentionally take aggro, position themselves near an aggro-holder when AoE recharge debuffs are being fired, or are less aware of enemy position, powers, and attack sequence may experience those cases more often.

[ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]

"Increases attack rate" can easily be interpreted to mean that the pet's attack rate is being increased by slotting the IO. The people who thought this was a normal, expected result of slotting the IO didn't need to execute an epic logical long-jump to reach their conclusion.


[/ QUOTE ]

As I recall, pretty much EVERY -O reads that way - and in every instance it increase how often the player's power recharges.


[/ QUOTE ]

Indeed, it's not just Set IOs - and demonstrates how in-game text can contribute to confusion and "unintended" uses. Especially since live-server Pet power recharge *is* affected in many cases, making the "increases attack rate" statement quite true.

"increases attack rate"
- Whose "attack rate" is increased? the player's? targeted pets? pseudopets? Are there exceptions (player's SoW, Mind Link)?
- Does this still benefit powers that are not an "attack"?
- Does it make a PBAoE toggle power hit enemies more often?
- Etc.
These are all legitimate questions from a new player, or one who is exploring the Real Numbers and IO system. The combination of help text, combat attribute monitoring, enhancement placement window, and even player testing can give conflicting or incomplete answers, and even if perfect still does not reliably indicate "intended" use.

"reduces delay before the power can be reactivated" seems closer to expressing the developers' apparent intended function for recharge SO/IOs.

When changes in code or intended gameplay are made, I encourage adjustment to the corresponding help text at the same time. If something is unintended but not exploitable to the degree that it warrants secrecy and emergency codefixes, then warning the players of the existence of the bug through a Bug List or similar means is a reasonable approach that I'd like to see.

[ QUOTE ]

Can anyone point out a pet/pseudo-pet class that is benefiting from this change a lot?
...
keep in mind I DO spend a lot of time IO'ing and would like the toon to improve considerable like all the other archtypes get to enjoy. Or is it a matter of that optional system put in place to add value not applying to pet classes anymore?
...
Any pet/pseodo-pet heavy toon you guys can suggest? or should I just roll a ss/wp brute or an sr scrapper and be done with it?


[/ QUOTE ]

While I cannot think of any pet-using powerset combination that will actually benefit from this change given your stated level of bind usage and tactical skills, I can suggest a few that are essentially unaffected. I am admittedly IO-crazy (every one of my characters gets Set IO'd at L32 at the latest) and have found these to feel powerful and/or survivable:

Earth|Fire|Ice/FF Controller (IO'd to near softcap defense)
Plant/FF|Kin|Rad Controller (IO'd for recharge and/or defense)
Illusion/Rad Controller (IO'd for recharge, mostly...the RIP IO sets will hopefully work now)
Robots/Dark Mastermind (IO'd for recharge and/or defense)

I am also trying a Necro/FF MM at the moment (only level 10) which seems promising... Thugs/Dark and Thugs/FF are likely good ones to try as well. I do recommend diversifying into willpower brutes and scrappers, you can really have fun powering them up with IOs.

Hopefully you find some combinations that you like...I enjoyed my IO'd, hastened stormies - especially Ill/Storm. I will probably still play them, but less often; my LStorm button (Ctrl-4) won't be quite the Awesome Button anymore. If Freezing Rain ever gets the "unintended" treament then I'll be saving money on server slot fees...