Rigel_Kent

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I'd rather see the limit at 15 or 20 per day.

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This will likely result in the spammer maintaining multiple spam accounts simultaneously for longer periods of time, sending 15 or 20 from each every day, as it'll take much longer for each account to get caught. Player-based reporting is directly tied to volume; volume goes down, reporting goes down.

It might frustrate the spammer enough to make him stop, but I doubt it. If restricting email to paid accounts wasn't frustration enough, I don't see how this will.

The only potential benefit I see is that the spammer might finally prune the duplicate names out of his player lists, but given the volume of resources under his control, I'm not sure he'll feel the need to economize.

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If they let us turn email off, spam dies. WE NEED THIS FEATURE!

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The devs should also think a step or two ahead. Offline global tells are stored similarly to emails, which could make them just as attractive to the spammer. If they become a target of the spammer, that could make it difficult for authors to receive feedback on architect missions.

So a better solution would be looking at multiple channels of communication. I've proposed a "mindwipe" system where if a GMs cuts off access to an account by determining it to be a single-purpose spam account, there'll be an extra button to delete all emails and global tell messages sent by that account. If there's a privacy concern, just code the mindwipe button to work silently, not giving the GM any more info about the messages or recipients. That'll require dev work, though, probably by one of the behind-the-scenes guys.

Also, Issue 15 will give authors more control over the mission level.

Yeah, I'm looking almost entirely at Combustion, not at all at Psychic Shockwave. Avoiding that little can of worms, just ignoring it entirely.

What happened to Flares obscures the reasoning behind the Combustion change, thus the fear and confusion. Is this bad news for big radius AoE attacks (Combustion = 15'), or bad news for fire attack powers (no secondary effects and no extra DoT either), or both or neither or something else? Anyone's guess.

Still, back on topic, possibly good news for snipes. I still would've rather seen autohit introduced to balance out interruptibility, but bigger damage and slower recharges are also a good fit. Though it could be just a side effect of Castle wanting dom secondaries to be slower rechargers, something blasters defenders corruptors and stalkers (PPPs) won't get to share.

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have a Pistol concept ready?

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Several! But most look like they'll be falling on the corrupter or defender side of things. Sorry.

EDIT: ... UNLESS there's a new blaster secondary coming we don't know about that changes my mind.

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... Castle's area of effect formula ... penalizes powers that have any significant ground coverage

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I don't quite get what you're talking about here. Blaster AoEs are already calculated according to that formula.

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I'm very sure they are not. When Claws was recalculated (19 AUG 2008 patch), power damage levels all changed.

Sonic primary, pick a secondary. Joust like mad to get from cone range to pbaoe/melee range and back again.

Sorry for the doom and gloom, but remember that the big single-target damage buffs for dominators were accompanied by a recalculation of their AoE damage according to Castle's area of effect formula. Which rather harshly penalizes powers that have any significant ground coverage.

So a bigger Zapp is fine, but not so great if it means we get the new Dominator version of Combustion along with it.

If you storm the stormiest storm, the stormy storm to storm it is to storm storm summoning.

Srsly.

Both solo well, both team well. The biggest difference between the two, so far as I can tell, is whether you're doing redside content with redside teammates, or blueside content with blueside teammates.

And the APP vs PPP of course. If you've got your heart set on Thunder Strike, blueside is the way to go, at least until we find out what Going Rogue is doing with the pools. Ditto for Electric Shackles and redside.

Also, as far as I can tell, Issue 15 doesn't change anything with either defenders or corruptors. You can roll either right now.

Dark/Psy and Kin/Sonic is another option. There's a lot of wiggle room in a defender duo, really hard to go wrong.

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I remarked that I should be sidekicked up to level 24 so that my heal would hit.

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While that's helpful, the real reason a dark miasmist likes to be sidekicked is to more easily reduce his enemies to quivering, tohit floored, barely-mobile sacks of jello. A -1 dark miasmist plus a sonic buffer is more than enough to carry a heal-less SPTF, so Twilight Grasp is just gravy.

It's not surprising that the toxic assumption that you need healing to do anything in this game is getting in the way of the team figuring out what defenders actually do. It there's one battle a defender missionary needs to choose, that's it.

Correct, controllers can definitely be on both lists.

And again, even if we boldly assume 1 defender is the lowest damage choice of 7 possible heroside ATs, it still doesn't mean that 2 defenders are the lowest damage duo of 49 possible combinations. That'd be 2 tankers or 2 peacebringers. Oy, I'm getting a headache just thinking about how slow those duos would be!

Anyway, the specific defender duo I recommended (Dark/Psi + Dark/Sonic) is especially gifted in the damage department, as it packs a frightening (no pun intended) amount of resistance debuffs, plenty of AoE damage, and a great mix of damage types.

When it comes to defenders, what is true for one is not necessarily true for more than one. One defender may be soft and weak, but two defenders are neither.

Also, AT damage modifiers are only a small part of an AT's real damage output. Also relevant are the number of attack powers, damage scales of the attacks, number of AoE attacks, target caps on those AoE attacks, area coverage of those AoE attacks, and the influence of buffs and debuffs being traded between the characters. Excellence in all of those categories is why defender teams outperform what a simplistic glance at their AT damage modifier would suggest.

A dark defender and a different kind of dark defender. Dark/Psi and Dark/Sonic perhaps. Just don't fall into the healing trap: Dark Miasmists have more than enough tools to prevent damage almost completely, so focus on those. (And they deal quite a bit of damage out too.)

You might give /Psi a thought, since your partner is dealing lethal damage. Backing him up with the Psi damage type will make certain villain groups a whole lot less of a pain.

Dark/Psi is liked for its indirect synergy between perma-fear and high damage single target attacks, for safe soloing. And combining wide radius -tohit, -recharge, and uncommon damage type, for safe teaming.

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you could build a blaster with absolutely no weaknesses.

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How come blasters and kheldians are the only ATs that need "weaknesses?" I don't see any "weaknesses" on scrappers. Suspecting undue other-RPG influence -- if you're trying to compare blasters to wizards, then they're the only ones who aren't allowed to wear armor in a world where everyone can cast fireballs.

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Soft-capped to all positions. ... And an extra 20% recharge in a power that needs no slots at all

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These numbers can be tweaked. Cutting the recharge buff to 10% is a likely compromise, as APPs typically have end costs and/or recharge times weakened, and you can change neither on a passive. A single defense toggle with numbers comparable to the existing APP Frozen Armor is also a likely compromise.

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Mez protection that can be perma, and even if a mez DOES get through you can still use your first 3 powers.

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So why are Earth and Fire Mastery the most popular controller APPs? I think either perma Indomitable Will isn't as realistic as you think it is, or perma Indomitable Will isn't as nice as Fissure or Fire Ball anyway. Or both.

Also, Defiance makes mez protection for a blaster less valuable, not moreso.

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out-damaging 95% of all scrappers.

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Why shouldn't the top 5% of blaster builds, in terms of minmaxing and cost (115% global recharge to perma IW, even with a 20% Quickness), outperform the bottom 95% of scrappers? Compare an unrealistically optimized build of one AT to an unrealistically optimized build of another AT, or else it's just apples and oranges.

In other words, let's see how a perma-IW blaster compares to, oh, say, a soft-capped shield scrapper.

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... if someone is on a PB or WS I assume that they are a veteran. I have to get with the times as that is no longer the case.

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It's never been the case. A PB or WS needs be no more experienced than a level 50 "pure Empath."

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Suggesting APPs is not a competitive activity

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Self-quote for those who missed it. Treating archetype design improvements as a form of PvP will get this game nowhere fast. Otherwise, there is always some other AT that'll claim to be more needy, and every idea will get stonewalled on that basis.

Best to implement good ideas as they come. Scrapper board is down there; construct new scrapper APP ideas to your heart's content, and maybe, just maybe, nobody will crash your thread and shoot your ideas down just because their own AT has a sob story.

You know, I just realized "preemptive healing" is a contradiction in terms.

All healing is reactive. If something is preemptive, then it's not healing.

What about a Practiced Brawler with stats equivalent to the controller APP version of Indomitable Will?

P.S. Villains need APPs even more than Scrappers. Suggesting APPs is not a competitive activity, though -- the more APP ideas there are out there, the easier it is to create and balance even more APPs.

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... only ltnts. I made them all martial arts and regen, both at highest difficulties. I later dropped their difficulties and brought them back up again.

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Which calls into question the assumption we've all been making, that GMs know what a farm looks like.

Hint: They don't contain custom LTs.

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OP: I frequently run into the problem where I edit a published mission but it doesn't update. Sounds like you had the same problem.

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Take away PBU's ability to boost damage and you've removed the entire issue.

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PBU is only one of many ways to get damage buffs. Aim/Amplify, Assault, Vengeance, set bonuses, Soul Drain, red insps, PvP zone buffs, not to mention outside buffs such as Fulcrum Shift. All damage buffs would boost the damage resistance buff value.

Did we ever need Phase Shift time limits?