Proletarian

I guess 903 million.

Yes, most of those AE badges are global. The others came after I hit 50 when I wanted to play the character but not worry as much about him dying (since then I could rationalize that it happened in a 'holodeck', not out on patrol). I got to 50 playing on PuGs with the first people to ask me; if no one was asking, I grabbed anyone who was lft.

I started the character to see how far I could take it without dying, after Fury had attempted a similar project. I had a couple very close calls, including a DoT that took me down to 2 health with me out of inspirations and no healing available. It was a fun project, more intense than normal.

You can doubt, deny, or denigrate it all you want, but I did it w/o farming, PL, etc. Didn't even team with folks I know for the most part, just to make it more chaotic. It's a great combo, with tons of debuffs and tools for surviving.

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In talking with Castle about this previously, the power is set so you can't delete it so you don't accidentially delete it during the course of the task force and then get to the end where you need it and you don't have it and then you can't complete it. Cause, you know, that would suck

So, either either need to get back into a lady grey task force and complete it to lose the power or wait out the total 1 week time for it to decay off them.

I've already given some feedback on this one to the team.

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I had personal experience with this bug, and it's two weeks. You'd have to *lead* another Lady Grey TF, not crash, and be the person to call it in to get rid of the power/aura. By bugging it and following up I was able to get rid of this aura after 3 days of playing with it. Petitions did nothing, and it wasn't until I got to the senior GM level with out of game bug report follow-ups that I was rid of the power/aura.

I'm not sure why this power is set to two weeks instead of say, the 5 hour timer the States TF anti-Aeon power from the thorn tree is set to.

Heck while you're looking at this TF could you examine the absurd crashless unstoppable power the Honoree has that lets him regenerate most of his health while it's active?

Anyway, main point is do something about this bug. It shouldn't matter who calls the TF in. TF complete is TF complete. I don't post often, so take this post as a sign that this is not an acceptable development & take steps to remedy it ASAP. Thanks.

Dear Devs:

Rage 3.0 is now Live, and it addresses some of the concerns voiced by the community. It now will not guarantee death for ourselves and our team. However it does still hurt us in teams, to the point where we're requested to *not* use it. Rage 4.0 is eagerly awaited by the tanker community and the heroes they protect.

In light of the concerns voiced in this thread and elsewhere by concerned parties, could we please have an official response of some sort? The information vacuum is creating much useless speculation, to the point where we're not even sure we're still being heard.

At a bare minimum we need to have taunts, inherent or otherwise, restored to the penalty phase. Otherwise you have created a power no one will take, except perhaps for dedicated RP types and passive-aggressive sadists who like watching teammates fall in battle. Other ideas have been bandied about on the boards and in this thread specifically that I don't need to address them again here.

Also, I'd like to know, yea or nay, whether the tankers affected by this will get another respec to replace the one wasted by the timing of this change. Personally if I'd known any changes were under consideration at the time the free respec was granted I'd have held onto it or gotten out of Rage entirely. I wasn't a big fan of the original, but I also hated having Hasten like 99.8% of the heroes out there -- especially since it fit my concept poorly. I'll go out on a limb and guess that most SS tankers if given the chance now would drop Rage for Hasten to get their damage output up without risking their team. My impression was that you wanted to encourage a diversity of power selections, with no one power so 'uber' that everyone had it. You've gone the opposite direction by messing up Rage.

So in conclusion, please when you make further changes to Rage think for a second about the logical outcome of the change and its effect on the game dynamics. You say on one hand you wish to encourage teaming, but then introduce a penalty that makes use of a power a danger for the team. Please remedy that. Also, do a better job of communication, even if it's to say, "We're still regularly reading these concerns, and are working on solutions, but have no time line at this point." Just something to let us know this is still on the radar and that our ideas are contributing. Lastly, whatever state Rage ends up in, please *strongly* consider giving affected tanks another respec due to the lack of notice for the original changes.

Yours,
Proletarian

Dear Devs:

Well I logged on to see if any changes had been announced, and alas they haven't. Put me down with the people who want an ETA of some sort for a fix of the 'fix'. The current Test build has Rage with the same drop of death it has on Live.

I also agree wholeheartedly with the people who feel betrayed by the timing of this change, coming as it did sufficiently after the free respec to guarantee most of us would've already used it. The build I chose with my free respec relied on Rage as it was. I still have the defense, but my offense is patchwork, to say the least. A lot of re-enhancements and I can muddle through.

Suffice it to say I would have waited had I had any inkling that a change of this magnitude was coming. I don't recall any announcements that Rage was going to be changed; if there was put me down with the 'casual' crowd you were supposedly trying to help. As it now, I'm staring at the few bars between me and 50 and guessing how much closer I'd have been w/o the adjustment bat whacking my powers in stealth fashion.

Please if you can work out the technical details, give SS users another respec or do something to try and make up for the timing of this whole thing. Also, try to get better in-house communication & coordination; then let us know what's happening. This Rage change just seemed to slip into a major build which helped a lot of others. It was announced for testing then published live just a few days later,which is unusual for your dev team. I'm not sure what happened but given the overall timing with the respecs, the invulnerable set changes, and the usual policy of 'Don't worry, it's only on Test." I feel disgruntled. Something went awry somewhere in the pipeline and my main character got screwed in the crossfire.

Yours in eager anticipation of news of reversion to Rage usability,

Proletarian

Well, reading all of these posts I think my concerns have been voiced. Rage will disorient you when you get hit with one more stun after it drops, you get a defense penalty now on live when it drops, etc.

I'm also getting tired of surprises like this, especially since I've just used my free respec. I did a respec trial just to get out of Unstoppable because I hated the crash -- it wasn't worth the benefits. Now Rage will be in that same category. When US became just Unyielding, Rage finally became a viable power. You didn't lose precious gaming time waiting out the disorient.

100% end drop is an insanely high drop for a 7th power in a set, especially in a set like SS which does low damage of the most resisted type of damage (smashing). Something should compensate for that low damage, and Rage *was* it. A mild end drop similar to Hasten, combined with the current -DEF and potential for stuns is sufficient to make you think carefully.

Personally, I don't think any tank that gets to 28 with SS as their offense can be considered 'casual'. There's just too much time required to get to that level with that set. If you can't learn to read combat warnings by that point the only way to balance anything will be to prevent certain powers from going off in disadvantageous circumstances. Sort of a kiddie mode that prevents them from harming themselves.

For reference my main character is a level 48 inv/ss tank. I dealt with the inv changes but that was by using my free respec. If you make major death-dealing changes to our powers you have to give us another respec, otherwise you remove the joy from our characters.

Edit: Even with Rage, SS tankers get through encounters slower than everybody except Mind Controllers or Defenders who focused on their primaries or power pools. Also a little situational analysis of the effects of a tanker dropping to no end, no toggles:

Alone: Flee, no harm done unless you were low health and get hit by that punch from 100 ft away (thrown as you fled.)

Duo: Partner screwed as remaining thugs latch onto them as tanker dies or gets enough distance to trigger toggles.

Team: Tanker again leaves others hanging my being compromised in health and/or having to leave their position in the crowd.

So it seems that this change, if published to live servers, would introduce a dynamic that made SS tanks a liability to others, especially in smaller groups where their damage output was needed. It could re-establish SS tanks as taunt bots who might occaisionally deliver a finishing blow.

Find a different penalty if you must, but IMO it already is risky enough. 100% end drop should never go in on anything except perhaps a massive damage AoE power. Definitely not for an AT meant to be surrounded by enemies taking shots to keep others safe.

Virtue is really the only server I've played on so far. Proletarian and Shoe can be found there. Crey files are linked in my signature. Short version is this: Proletarian is an inv/ss science tanker (fun when you fight a bunch of Vahzilok with "special" damage that you have no resistances possible for ) and Shoe, a natural gravity/empathy controller.