Rigel_Kent

So, people with big -regen debuffs can solo GMs, and one blaster secondary has a big -regen debuff.

What else is new?

The proposal addresses both those design goals.

It moves chat traffic away from server Help channels, which are completely vulnerable to spam, to player moderated global channels, which are well protected from spam by allowing F2P accounts to join with an invite only.

It retains a significant global channel reward at reward level 3 for paying players.

Paragon Reward Level 1: Add access to existing global channels with a chan_invite.

Paragon Reward Level 3: Delete access to global channels (moved to level 1). Add permission to create global channels, become global channel operators, and join public global channels without a chan_invite.

Rationale: Moves LFT/LFM and other off-topic chat traffic off [Help] to player moderated channels. Eliminates need for a F2P accessible, thus spam-vulnerable, LFG server channel. Invite-only access to player moderated channels would not be very vulnerable to spam. Retains a reward at level 3 for Premiums who reach that level.

Thanks for the update!

Rolled my first Rad, and a little surprised nobody's caught this one.

Radiation Emission

Bugs

• Accelerate Metabolism buffs flight speed, but does not accept flight speed enhancements or flight IO sets.

Plus, you'll be able to look at some ice corruptor or defender in your team and say "Betcha can't do this."

Although I've never played Ice/Ice specifically, my blapper intuition tells me you might want to explore a dual build for this. One build focused on the ST BIB+blaps+recharge beatdown, one build geared more toward ranged cones, AoE damage, and ranged defense.

Oh, wow. I never looked at it that way.

So now that I squint my eyes at any electric attack set, and pretend "-100% recovery" says "mag 2 stun" instead, the way the powers were balanced way back in Issue 0 starts to make some creepy kind of sense.

Just do me a favor and bring me back to reality before Short Circuit starts looking like it's the best mez blast in the game and needs its damage, accuracy, and recharge nerfed to look more like Dark Pit.

I had a silly idea. I don't think it's a particularly good idea. Just tossing it out there because it's amusing. Maybe it'll lead to a better idea.

What about making the nuke crashes different depending on each blast set's debuff theme? Thunderous Blast would continue to reduce the user's endurance and recovery, but only as much as the same debuffs applied to the targets. Dreadful Wail would reduce the user's damage resistance instead. Psychic Wail would reduce the user's recharge. Blizzard would reduce the user's recharge and movement speed. Blackstar would reduce the user's tohit. Atomic Blast would reduce the user's defense. Inferno would inflict the user with DoTs. Add hard mezzes to Thunderous Blast, Blizzard, Blackstar and Inferno to balance things out.

Some of electric attack sets' problems are debatable, but I think we might all agree on one bit of weirdness that should be fixed.

Electric attacks use the Ones multiplier (i.e. same for all ATs), not the EndDrain multiplier, for endurance drains in PvE. But they use the EndDrain multiplier (i.e. better for Defenders), for endurance drains in PvP.

This can't be right. Why not use the EndDrain multipliers for endurance drains in both PvE and PvP? This would improve, for example, defender Short Circuit from 35% base endurance drain to 43.75%, or corruptor Transfusion from 40% base to 44%, or controller Conductive Aura from 10% base per tick to 11%.

True, using the EndDrain multiplier for PvE doesn't help blasters directly; only controllers, corruptors, and defenders have an EndDrain multiplier greater than One. Still, there's a lot of synergy when more than one teammate is sapping, so elec blasters, scrappers, stalkers, tankers, dominators and brutes stand to benefit indirectly from their better sapping teammates.

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One other bit of weirdness I don't like about elec attacks is the random procs, short durations, and limited stackability and enhanceability of the recovery debuffs. No other debuffs have these limitations.

For example, most ice blasts always apply a nicely stackable and enhanceable slow debuff for a duration a bit longer than the power's recharge. Most dark blasts always apply a nicely stackable and enhanceable tohit debuff for a duration a bit longer than the power's recharge. Rad, psy, and sonic blasts follow the same pattern (though psy and sonic debuffs can't be enhanced).

Only elec blast breaks the pattern. Most elec blasts have a longshot chance to apply a recovery debuff for a duration barely half the power's recharge. With 100% base debuff value, even if you're lucky and manage to stack another debuff, it isn't much help. And endmod enhancements are of limited use, as lowering a target's recovery below 0% is useless.

This can't be right. Why not make it work more like every other blast set's debuffs? For instance, blaster Charged Bolts could be improved from 7% end drain and 20% chance to proc -100% recovery for 2 seconds, to 7% end drain and (100% chance to proc) -20% recovery for 6 seconds. At the ED cap for endmod, this would mean 13.65% end drain and 20% chance to proc -195% recovery for 2 seconds becomes 13.65% end drain and -39% recovery for 6 seconds.

It seems like the Issue 0 design of recovery debuffs was to simulate some kind of on/off binary state. Either the target was recovering end or wasn't. But this design has never actually worked. Targets can resist the debuff, or can have more than 100% base recovery. Better to make it work on simple addition and subtraction like all other debuffs.

It's a good experiment, but you need a point of reference. Do the same thing with a stalker, then compare the results?

The slower animation time is a bummer, true, but I think a more significant difference is that Possess checks against def(negative) rather than def(psionic). In PvE, I'd consider that an improvement.

Sleep resistance is bugged. Any amount of sleep resistance will provide full immunity to sleep powers with a damage component. (This is not a new bug.)

All new Dark Astoria critters were given blanket 50% sleep resistance. Therefore powers like Mesmerize, Flash Freeze, and Siren's Song will not inflict sleep against any critters at all in Dark Astoria, instead of having their durations properly reduced by 33%.

Suggested fix: Remove blanket sleep resistance from Dark Astoria critters until the old sleep resistance bug is fixed.

It appears to be a new invisible and undocumented self-debuff that was added to Inner Inspiration but not given a patch note.

The debuff prevents you from using Inner Inspiration and only waiting around in-game will cause the debuff to expire. Trying to activate the power while under the debuff will give no error message, so players have no way of knowing the power isn't somehow permanently broken, or something else is wrong.

Not sure why the devs felt the need to introduce another confusing recharge mechanic just for this power, anyway. Tier 2 inspirations are fun but worthless; tier 3's are only somewhat better. Though there are ways to force faster Inner Inspiration recharges, there are still considerable limits on how fast; build swaps have 15 minute cooldowns, for example. And most of the players being impacted by the change weren't doing anything like that, anyway, just using it before they logged out and expecting it to be recharged by the next day.

Partial workaround: If you're accustomed to popping Inner Inspiration before the end of a day's play session, instead of logging out immediately, let yourself time out from inactivity. This will reduce the duration of the debuff a bit so that it's not quite as bad when you log back in the next day.

Suggested fix: Have the debuff expire in 30 minutes real time instead of in-game time. Or roll back this change and keep recharge mechanics simple and unconfusing.

Ultimately, without some kind of fix, I have a feeling this power might be leaving a few players' trays just from the annoyance added in this patch.

Apparently missing patch note:

The Inner Inspiration paragon rewards power now inflicts a 30 minute in-game time cooldown. If you use Inner Inspiration before logging out for the night, or otherwise get Inner Inspiration to recharge in less than 30 minutes of in-game time, it will remain unusable until the forced in-game cooldown expires.

And it's surprisingly annoying. No more popping Inner Inspiration before logging out for me, I guess.

Yep. All HOs will enhance only the aspects matching the power's allowed SOs. Except for a few straight Dmg/Mez examples mentioned early, it looks like all the uses in this thread involve sideways slotting, so all are going away; the ones in my post are definitely going away. I know I'll be retiring at least two toons that needed sideways slotting to be even remotely interesting or competitive.

Those HOs that remain functional will be only marginally better than IOs, except have no set bonuses. After I22, I see them only as the enhancements F2P's have to settle for because they can't use the good ones (IOs), or enhancements you dump into a one-slot wonder because you can't get a set bonus anyway. Market prices for some HO types have already tumbled quite a bit.

Welcome to City of IOs, where you can customize your character any way the devs want you to.

Not every power in a set has to be good.

That said, powers in a set that aren't good should at least have some fun factor, and shouldn't become a detriment when you decide to have some fun and use it.

For those reasons, I'd propose the following changes to all crashing nukes for all ATs (corruptors and defenders too):
1) Increase the fun factor by reintroducing a form of the Defiance 1.0 mechanic; the smaller your health bar, the bigger the nuke. A comic book hero firing off his final desperation attack at 1% health should leave a freakin' crater.
2) Decrease the punitive factor by softening the crash. You're already at a disadvantage, as a player, for taking, slotting, and using a suboptimal power just for fun. The game shouldn't punish you even more.

I'm hesitant to share this idea. I'm not 100% behind it, since it could end up hurting other ATs a lot, but might as well throw it out there. My feelings will not be hurt if a redname wanders into this thread specifically to shoot this idea down.

Dump melee and ranged damage modifiers. Melee damage and ranged damage aren't different team roles. They both accomplish the same thing. No reason to make a coded distinction.

Instead, add ST and AoE damage modifiers. These are truly different team roles and would be worthy of a distinction. Some ATs should be good AV killers. Some ATs should be good at blowing away minions/LTs en masse. Blasters I would suggest be good at both.

For the same reasons Miladys_Knight discussed, blasters would be the beneficiaries of a buff to mez protection powers like Clear Mind. The devs seem to think making me cast Clear Mind 4 times instead of once in a team of five makes the game somehow better; I disagree. I don't see why Clear Mind and its clones are so much better than Speed Boost that they have to remain so limited. Make Clear Mind an AoE buff like Speed Boost, and the problem may be solved indirectly.

In addition, I'd like to see 10 seconds of mez protection added to all Aim and Build Up powers on all ATs. I first had this idea before ever playing (that other superhero MMO), and once I saw this idea in action there, I was just more convinced it's a good one. Why? Getting mezzed on any squishy is a bummer, but getting mezzed during my ten seconds to shine can be mouse-throwing, chair-kicking, wake-the-neighbors infuriating.