Siolfir

To answer this question specifically, I like the idea but agree that it would depend on the requirements. I also don't see it happening, and here's why:

Potential issues with a per-character unlock (which may be why they went with the license subscription model in the first place) is that the permissions may only be able to be set on the account level - which isn't how I would've set it up, but I don't know what they're specifically working through so let's just assume that the license model is based on that limitation. So let's make an assumption that they aren't going to change it to a per-character unlock or they would've done that and marketed it already - having it account-wide only makes it less likely to happen from the devs' perspective since most things that you can do in game that provide substantial rewards only apply to the character that you did it with (think Accolade powers).

Now the next issue is that you have to decide what a fair cost for an account-wide unlock is. We've already shown in this thread that there is a vast gap in perception as to what that fair cost would be, so that's where the largest part of the problem comes in. Someone will think it's too much, and then people will show up to bash them for wanting something for nothing, or someone will think it's too little and talk about how it will kill the game(!) - just look around to see that.

It doesn't resolve the initial impression of coming back only to not be able to use your character the way you built them, and it also discourages using a respec since once you finish you can then reuse the build that you just respecced out of! You can use another build or run around unslotted while trying to unlock the invention system, I suppose, but by itself it's only part of the solution.

So, how are you going to allow the unlock? Let's say you use merits as a way to unlock it. How many merits is enough? 500? 1000? 10000? You're also reducing one of the ways that they can actually get inventions at the same time that they're unlocking it, which isn't a bad tradeoff, but whatever you set as a number will be picked apart and lower-tier players can't earn merits at all.

So I like the idea in concept, but I see a lot of things in the way from it being implemented.

It's kindof a combination of the buff/debuff effects and the pets, although it was passed off as a "pet class" issue - pets provide a more significant performance hit on the server than the various buff/debuff effects. Of course, this was really targeted at Masterminds (Thugs MM with Burnout = 26 pets from the primary alone), and I think Controllers were just hit for parity reasons (since Dominators get pets also and are allowed) although they have 1-5 pets and take the buff/debuff sets as well.

Well, Dark has a +3.5% defense power, but it's not FFG from Traps (10%) or Farsight from Time (9.375%). The -tohit is much more notable in Dark, and neither of those sets has an ally rez.

And when you're aiming at trying to be at or near the softcap on everything on a budget, the difference in defense is significant.

It's a great set, but it looks better on paper since those numbers also don't factor in that you need mobs to stay alive through Fulcrum Shift's animation to stay at the damage cap the whole time. It's possible, especially when farming, but on a team that's a lot less likely to happen because your teammates are going to be doing silly amounts of damage as well and often will have everything in the spawn dead during the animation of the next FS... once it wears off you cap them again in the next spawn, though, so it doesn't stay down for long.

Alternatively:
Corruptor = .75 * (1+.95+3.05) * (1+.3) = 4.875
.75 = ranged mod
.95 = enhancements
3.05 = Fulcrum Shift to self-cap damage
.3 = Scourge

Of course, this doesn't track animation time involved in stacking Fulcrum Shift to remain at the damage cap, nor does it take survival into account. But if you're going to look at Sleet + Heat Loss, which is one specific outlier case, then I'm going to look at Kinetics as another.

I do. Because I'm one of those people posting in favor of it, and I have a subscription.


Because nobody would ever make more than two characters.

A free/premium player gets a base of 2 slots compared to a VIP's base of 180 (ignoring Exalted since a premium couldn't buy those if they wanted to). So... 175 slots at $20 per 5 (best rate) is $700, or over 46 months of a subscription at $15/month. Or they could buy them one at a time, in which case they're still spending money, just less of it.

Yes, that's a separate unlock but it unlocks earlier than the rest of the invention system through the Paragon Rewards system (all tier 4 badges/tier 5 compared to all tier 7 badges/tier 8).

It might have changed since freedom's beta, but when they did the "set everyone to premium" testing, I lost access to the level 50 Warshade I had on beta. I didn't have a MM or Controller copied or created there, but I was high enough tier to not matter. But I already had an EAT created and could not play it - even after using the character slot unlock on that slot - until I went to the store and paid for the AT. It said that the AT was unplayable when I went to enter the game.

I guess the issue for me was that I was soloing and couldn't debuff the whole spawn with just one click that I refresh later because of the size of the splash area - I had to use it repeatedly to hit everything and after the first use you have non-debuffed mobs attacking you.

With Rad the AoE on the toggle(s) usually covers everyone at 15', with Freezing Rain/Sleet the radius is 20' and the mobs are also flopping, Melt Armor matches Rad's 15' radius and Darkest Night/Anguishing Cry/Slowed Response are all 25'. It's much easier to catch everyone without having to aggro the mob in advance, even in the case of Pain's PBAoE if you have Superspeed and/or a stealth IO.

Which was the point. You're unlikely to entice someone to come back by telling them the characters that they remember can't play the way they used to without recurring payments. Even if it's just a one-time-only fee like the AT unlocks and on a per-character basis, that's less over-time cost for someone coming back to "play for free".

No, it's the same size as Spin. And Whirling Hands, Typhoon's Edge, Dragon's Tail, almost all of the damage auras, and so on. It's not larger, and while you aren't taking up part of that radius and could fit more mobs into it if they're already tightly packed, you also don't have the same freedom of placement when the mobs are spread out a bit like you do with a PBAoE.

I personally thought that it would interfere more with the tidal forces mechanic by virtue of Poison being so click-heavy, and then went ahead and made a Water/Kin because Fulcrum Shift is worth it.

This, basically. Even at scale 3.56 on a 20 second recharge, you'd have 2.64 arcanatime and overall DPA of 1.348 DS/sec; this makes it a good choice to use but still under BIB's 1.727.

Getting rid of the lockout on Water Jet's insta-recharge would probably boost Water Blast's damage enough to at least be reasonably close in a high end build setup, and DP and Sonic were specifically mentioned as being looked at - significantly faster animations would be the way to go for those sets IMO, but many people simply love the DP animations as they are.

Which is why I love the set. >.>

Seismic Smash, Crushing Uppercut, and Knockout Blow all scoff at your assessment that the strongest attack in a set shouldn't have a hold.

Prior to the changes I had a Bots/Poison MM that I got to the early 30s before abandoning - I had a level 50 Bots/Traps already and Traps was far and away a better set. As for after the changes, the limited experience I had with it on beta with a Dark/Poison Corruptor led me to believe that the AoE splash was a minor benefit at best, but I was soloing at low levels and things wouldn't pack together nicely for me so I often didn't hit anything with the tiny splash - it's the same size AoE of Whirling Hands/Axe/Sword, so it's possible to get good use if things are packed in tightly but... yeah. I guess you could try corner-pulling every spawn, or just team with a Brute or Tanker to pack things in tightly for best effect.

I just wish the radius had been set to the (otherwise fairly standard) 15' radius for AoE debuffs. I can see why it'd be a stretch to call 15' a "splash" but when I was playing the set it still felt like too much of a single-target-debuff only set to me. The only real benefit in PvE over anything else is having an AoE -special, but you're spending a lot of animation time to use it as one because of the AoE size and the -special isn't all that useful on most enemies because a mez (especially Confuse, looking at the Controller side of the argument) or simply killing them is faster.

Because of the large number of clicks to cover a spawn, I don't know that it would pair well with Water (due to the Tidal mechanic) beyond being a good thematic fit. If you like the pairing and want to try it, go for it. Just know that it's going to be a very active secondary when you go into it, so you aren't surprised when other Corruptors are able to spend more time using the pretty new powerset rather than the ugly old one that had a facelift a while ago to try and be less ugly.

Haven't seen many - or any, really - depictions of Cerebus that have him looking like a german shepherd, complete with only one head. You could almost go there with Hell Hounds, but hiding the model works and not showing the body still works better even for that. Plus, it would be an amorphous quadriped cloud of smoke that would fit other themes as well.

These, but I was also considering Storm and Rad and leaning away from Poison. Poison and Kinetic could be a touch too busy to make good use of the combo system, but at least with Kinetic when you're damage capped from Fulcrum Shift you don't care quite as much...

This, really. The Hellfire Imps from Hell on Earth use the same "fire" effect as Fire Imps, but without the Rikti Monkey base model; why couldn't the Umbral Beast simply not show the dog model if it had to be used?

The eyes and cloud could be the two colors for the power customization, and not being able to see the German Shepherd model would alleviate a lot of the appearance complaints. And the barking has got to go - growling would be appropriate if you had to have the extra noise.

The pet summon has an 80' range, so it really doesn't matter. Enemy density and enemy corpse density are what gets you the vines.