Westley

SabreOfParadise :
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The devs have shown no inclination to buff unpopular sets in the past and I don't see why they will suddenly start now.


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....

Mystic_Poobah:
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Well it took them 3.5 years to finally get around to revamping MoG. If that actually gets done, then I'm gonna say the gloves are off and anything is possible.

Let's not forget that we also will soon be getting real numbers, something that would have NEVER happened under the Emmert regime. Flashback too.

It's the dawn of a new era for CoX, and a lot of the old verboten taboos no longer are. I think it's highly likely FF will get looked at at some point. There is no longer any reason not to. Admittedly, Castle has a full plate right now, but look at the changes he's just recently made -- the aforementioned MoG, Frozen Aura, Defiance, Assassin Strike... Remember, just as Posi no longer has to answer to Jack, Castle is no longer shackled by Geko.

At this point I think any under-performing power or set is fair game for adjustment. We just need to give Castle a good reason to look at them (and hope his datamining supports our position).

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Quoted for FREAKING TRUTH!

Let just look at the most recent headlines on the CoH main page...



"NCsoft Acquires City of Heroes Franchise and Launches NorCal Studio"

"Manticore Returns!"

"A New Age Dawns!"

Yes, times they are a-changin'. What was once true is now not necessarily. Keep your eyes, ears, and hearts open. Don't lose hope.

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The fact that this got stickied is sad

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Well so far, you're the only one that thinks so.

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perhaps the brainstorming period is over, and it is time to consolidate?

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*has a strange coughing fit, points to sig*

<QR>

Here is a suggestion from forumite Neuronia, who sent it to me in a PM:

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I'm putting aside the Controller aspect as I think it skews things more to the side of extreme safety and doesn't have much relevancy to the topic.

Rolled a FF Defender yesterday (went FF/Psy) so I'll have more to report as I crest 50. One thing I *did* want to get back to was Detention Field changes.

I turned my attention to Peacebringer Quantum Flight (No, I'm NOT asking we get a travel power added to DF, that's not Cottage Country, it's silly), wherein you do have a Toggle with an increasing endurance cost as you maintain it.

In this case, you could capture your foe for a variable amount of time. Endurance costs would increase exponentially until evetually either:

i)The toggle would 'break' from lack of endurance recovery.
Problem with this...with Recovery IOs could be made 'permable'

i)Timer on the power would drop it after a set period, irregardless of the amount of Catch a Breath or recovery associated.

This would turn DF into a sort of 'soft' Control for the Forcefield user. We might want to increase the recharge time somewhat though, if we're getting an autohit Toggle.

Other considerations, if the target would break line of sight (this is obviously more of a consideration in the case of a player affected) the Toggle would break and need to be reapplied.

I am somewhat uneasy at the Toggle aspect, esp. vis-à-vis player vs. player interactions, but this seems, at least to me, to be somewhat of a better compromise.

Lastly, I do think it's possible for the Devs to code the changes to the Defender version only. I'm a little foggy at the moment but I'm sure this has happened in the past.

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Another impressive video. However you did have to make EXTENSIVE use of the medicine pool....

... and where is the tutorial part? If I didn't know what the powers do I wouldn't know what powers you were using half the time....

EDIT: P.S. This doesn't really have anything to do with the discussion about changing the FF Defender primary.

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You can piss off too Dr. Phil.

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What did I do?

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Sorry PK, that was directed at Starfox. Due to both his statement that Magicj has done nothing wrong by intentionally trying to stop this discussion and defending the statement that some of these ideas are "terrible".

The arrogance of telling people that, and also telling us that we should focus the discussion according to how Starfox thinks it should be presented to the devs annoyed me. The more ideas the better I say!

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No I'm sorry. From all of my various posts that somehow seem to release the greatest hatred in people (no matter how innocent the content of the post), I've actually started to get used to being CALLED Dr. Phil. It's the most common insult people throw at me....Strange, huh?

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Here's an idea I had to add debuffs and damage to FF without changing existing functionality: combos. Use combos, like those found in Dual Blades, to add abilities.

Here's a few examples: The X -> Y -> Z notation means use powers X, Y, and Z, within the combo time to get the bonus. If you don't do it within the combo time, the powers work as they currently do with no bonus.

Dispersion Bubble -> Personal Force Field
Creates a PBAoE effect the size of Dispersion Bubble. Everyone within this effect is enclosed inside a Personal Force Field. Duration is 15 seconds.

Repulsion Bomb -> Force Bolt -> Detention Field
All baddies within the AoE of Repulsion Bomb are affected by a -Defense Debuff. The baddie in Detention Field suffers -Regen and minor DoT.

Force Bolt -> Repulsion Bomb
Doubles Repulsion Bomb's chance to Stun. Adds 40% chance of moderate damage to all affected by Repulsion Bomb.

Repulsion Field -> Force Bubble
Applies -Resistance and -Recharge to all baddies hit by both powers.

Deflection Shield -> Insulation Shield
Gives +Regen to target similar in power to Spirit Tree. Does not stack with self or Insulation Shield combo bonus.

Insulation Shield -> Deflection Shield
Gives +Recharge, +Recovery to target about 1/2 the strength of Speed Boost. Does not stack with self or Deflection Shield combo bonus.

All powers would need to be used against the same target throughout the combo to get the bonus.

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This is actually a VERY interesting idea. I think it may fall into the area of Cottages though, but that's for the devs to decide.

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You can piss off too Dr. Phil.

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What did I do?

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Then suggest solutions. Then condense the suggested solutions into something we can agree on.

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Well, in my sig is a link to earlier in this post where I had taken the time to collect and combine all of the suggestions so far. I hope that someone saw that, it took me a few hours....

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SHAMEFUL BUMP TO SAVE THE THREAD FROM THE VOID!

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Congratulations, you've been stickied!

This thread and the FF thread. This is a serious setback to my program of taking over the top of the Defender forum. I'm going to have to work harder at being useful and entertaining!

- Jock Tamson, Who is glad we now have the origin of Fruit Salad stickied by extension.

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You will ALWAYS be the Bard of the Defender Forum. Nothing will change that.

And when you die, I will auction off all of your thrown away notebooks that I've been collecting.

*looks up at the thread*

My GOD what have I done???????????

Perhaps I should just not go to work anymore, so that I can keep up with this thread.

Have I created a monster?

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Repulsion bomb hasn't worked that way for 2 years

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I only found this out today.

I have been avoiding this power for years because I thought it worked off of an ally.

Some may say if I've been playing for that long, perhaps I should have known this. Should I? Should I really have to scour the Patch Notes for changes like this, or diligently follow the forums when I could be using my limited free time actually playing? Should new players be required to read every past patch note and cross-check against the in-game information for discrepancies?

Shouldn't I be able to rely on the in-game description of a power being at least reasonably accurate?

Frankly, I think this is more than a simple text bug. It's a disgrace. Players should NEVER have to rely on out-of-game sources for such basic and fundamental information, especially in the absence of an accurate and up-to-date game manual. Forum guides and external websites are certainly useful, but they should never be the only source for something this important.

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QUOTED FOR FREAKING TRUTH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Repulsion bomb hasn't worked that way for 2 years

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Ah, good. As long as the misinformation gets cleared up on one end or the other.

EDIT: Incidentally, did they ever get around to changing the text or does it still say you have to target an ally with it in the description?

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STILL says teammate in game. Something that's bugged me for a LONG time.

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Fixing those blasting sets to have wider cones and the nukes to have an 85% Endurance drain would enable Defenders to basically duplicate the effects in that video. Herd. AoE control. Nuke. Clean up.

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You're suggesting that Defenders should be able to do everything Controllers can. Or that any AT should be able to do anything that any other AT can. I don't think I can agree to that.

That's a nice little video, who does the music?

As a side note, I can see where you might think that Defenders' blasts are "weak" because we can't really do the same things that controllers can like what you showed in the video.

Then again, most archetypes can't do everything that other archetypes can. There is some spillover, the edges are gray and not solid, but there are some things that we just weren't meant to do.

I like pie.

Arcanaville likes Pi.

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Make it much more visible. Ages ago, before the current change in appearance, there was a suggestion to tint it red. That still seems like a very good idea. Red is an obvious warning color. All variants of the current FF color are likely to be drowned in other FF FX.

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Quoted For Truth, Bolded for Emphasis


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Repulsion Bomb
The current implementation of this power should go; it is unpopular and lacks any practical use. The animation is horrible for a reactive power and should be replaced with something more like Force Bolt.

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Bolded for Emphasis

Wow. Did I say anything negative whatsoever? I don't think so. I was actually reaffirming your idea and pointing out what part I liked the best.

Man, sometimes I think people just WANT to be upset with me!

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Second would be to add some kind of status effect or debuff. Personally I like the idea of a disorient. It fits the nature of the power very well, and makes it much like a single target version of Repulsion Bomb. My only concern here is the devs would most certainly want to drastically lengthen the recharge time if they gave it a standard disorient (most single target disorients have a base recharge of 20 seconds; Force Bolt currently is 4). So perhaps it could be a minor disorient to keep recharge time fairly short (20 seconds IMO would be far too long). Enough stun to be useful, not enough to warrant a 500% increase in recharge.


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That's why I like the idea of a low CHANCE to disorient. If it will only disorient every 5 to 6 hits, I don't see a need to nerf the power in any other way, and then we can spam it on AVs and GMs to give us something else to do to help in that fight.

Consolidated List of FF Change Suggestions

These suggestions are in order of their appearance in the thread. All suggestions listed so far in the thread have been added here, whether I agree with them or not.

[u]General Requests[u]<ul type="square">[*]Add a Defense DeBuff somewhere.[*]Give us a way to add to the team's damage.[*]Suggested power: Force Wall, a placeable "wall" of force that cannot be passed, suggested 40 foot length.[*]Add "movement powers" to the set, like Kinetics has, justified as us giving ourselves and teammates "low friction".[*]Add more contextually-sensitive elements to environments that activate for various effects under various conditions. Similar to dynamite or light-able oil-slicks that already exist in-game.[/list]
[u]Power Specific[u]

Personal Force Field:<ul type="square">[*]Allow slotting for +Res.[*]Allow the field to be "suppressed", allowing the bubbler to fire through it with either a loss of defense or with a severe defense and/or resistance penalty.[*]Allow the user to affect allies while in the field.[/list]
Deflection and Insulation Shields:<ul type="square">[*]Switch the Defense percentages between Dispersion Bubble and Insulation and Deflection Shields.[*]Make them into PBAoE auras.[*]Add +Recovery to Insulation Shield.[/list]
Dispersion Bubble:<ul type="square">[*]Replace the sleep weakness with an immobilize weakness.[*]Add +Recovery to all allies.[*]Increase the size to the same as Force Bubble, or switch their sizes.[/list]
Force Bolt:<ul type="square">[*]Add a low percentage chance to disorient knockback resistant mobs.[*]Increase the toggle dropping ability.[*]Increase the knockback magnitude.[*]Add -Damage or -Resistance.[*]Add more damage to the power.[/list]
Detention Field:<ul type="square">[*]Add a short-term placate effect to anyone that tries to attack the enemy that's detained.[*]Change to a timed toggle power so that it can be turned off at will but is forced off if left on too long. [*]Change the graphic to where its super super obvious that thing has been detained.[*]Add a power icon to the bubbler's status window to show when the field is about to lift.[*]Make the target of the field unable to be targeted by anyone until 5 seconds before the power deactivates.[*]Make the detained target unable to affect itself as well.[*]Add -Regen to the detained target.[*]Allow it to target enemies or allies.[*]Make Cold, Fire, Energy, and Neg. Energy attacks directed at the detained target become small radius AoEs of the same damage type - a splash effect. [*]Change to a Mag 4 Sleep.[*]Allow player attacks to "move" the detained target even if they do no damage.[*]Change to an immobilize and adds -Accuracy to the enemy.[*]Make into a targettable AoE.[*]Make into a "reverse Personal Force Field". The enemy has high Defense and Damage Resistance but can't attack.[/list]
Repulsion Field :<ul type="square">[*]Increase the endurance cost per hit and increase the "pulse" rate of the knockback pulses, or change the pulse rate the the same as that of Repel in Kinetics.[*]Add a knockback magnitude modifier that is based on the radius distance away from the PBAoE; the closer to the center of the PBAoE the higher the magnitude of the KB.[*]Either increase the magnitude to make it more powerful or decrease it to make it knockdown.[*]Add a small percent chance to disorient or a +Slow effect to enemies.[*]Add a "negative Power Boost" effect: reduces all enemy effects i.e. mez durations, defense buffs, heals, etc.[*]Give it a larger radius but decrease the pulse rate.[*]Alternatively, make it half the size of Dispersion Bubble and increase the knockback magnitude.[/list]
Repulsion Bomb:<ul type="square">[*]Decrease the animation and/or cast time SUBSTANTIALLY.[*]Increase the chance to stun substantially, or change the knockback into knockdown.[*]Increase the recharge time of the power to 2 or 3 minutes and/or increase the endurance cost. (Assuming that one or more of the items above are done as well)[*]Increase the damage the power does to that of a tier 1 blast.[*]Change it to an AoE or cone version of Force Bolt.[*]Change into a Defender version of Bonfire: It would be a placeable AoE knockback object.[*]Add a -Defense, -Resistance or -Regen.[*]Change it back to ally-targeted, or fix the description in-game.[*]Add a Transference effect.[*]Make it a placeable AoE or targeted AoE with a "reverse knockback" effect that sucks all enemies towards it.[*]Replace with a "Frostworks-Like Shield"[/list]
Force Bubble:<ul type="square">[*]Increase the chance of knockdown/back.[*]Make it give +10% Resistance to all, or 5-10% Defense bonus to the FFer.[*]Make it the same radius as Dispersion, or switch the radii of the two powers.[*]Increase the magnitude of the Repel effect and/or add a +Slow component to the power.[*]Reduce the endurance cost or the recharge.[*]Change to a -Damage, -Speed, -Recharge, -Accuracy, -ToHit, or -Resistance aura. (Pick and choose your DeBuffs)[*]Add a +ToHit or +Damage, +Regen or +Recovery to allies.[/list]
All similar or identical suggestions were removed.

Please consider the following guidelines with your future suggestions:

No Cottages: The smaller the change, the more likely it is to become reality.
Maintain the Theme: Force Fields is known best for damage mitigation, it is also known for Knockback, Repel, and "Phasing".
Equivalent Exchange: For balance reasons, it's easier to give something up to get something. No free lunches unless something is vastly underpowered.

Please feel free to post your future suggestions here. I will offer no more negative criticisms of them.

Here is a shortcut so that you can refer to this post in the future as a new "starting point": http://tinyurl.com/3xedkh

At the suggestion of so many, I'm going to back out of this thread slowly and see where it goes. I'm probably getting too involved right now to be unbiased. I think I need to take a step back.

Powerhelm, I looked up Gilderoy. I'm not a fraud, I can DO everything I say I can do. I'm not Gilderoy.

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It is not your place to make such requests.

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Anyone can REQUEST anything from anyone, as long as we live in a free society. And the other person is free to not comply. There are no "places" here. I requested, you didn't comply, I let it go. So please stop saying that I "told" you to "shut up" when I didn't.

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And to be quite frank, after seeing your suggestions on how to change FF, you need all the help you can get. Putting your hands over your ears and saying "I can't hear you" doesn't change the fact that FF Knockback doesn't work with Defender blasts and that FF herding doesn't work with Defender nukes.


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You're right, we need all the help we can get, but I'm just asking for constructive criticism. And I made no reference at all to your comments about Defender blasts and nukes, I'm letting your comments stand on their own, I have nothing to say about them.

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And if you feel that Defenders will be the only ones affected by these changes, I have to disagree with you. Folks won't be happy with one set getting, say, -Speed in a power and other sets not getting it, even if the -Speed is pointless and probably counter-productive.

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Okay, I can see that. However there are already sets out there that ARE differentiated. I can't think of them right now, but if I did some digging I'm sure I could find them easily. I know that they are out there.

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You told me to leave the thread, which is exactly the same thing as telling me to shut up.

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"Shut up" is an impolite demand. I ASKED you to leave a thread who's title is "Make Your FF Change Suggestions Here!" after you already said that you didn't want any changes, because at that point you weren't adding anything to the conversation. I never told you to do anything, I requested. Since then, I haven't requested again. A polite request is not the same as an impolite demand. CDN_Guardian gave you an impolite demand. I did not.

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Nor will Defenders be the only AT affected by whatever changes come from this, if any.

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And how will any other AT be affected when we have specifically asked for any suggested changes to ONLY apply to the ForceFields Defender primary?

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Where you caught hell from me was when you told me to shut up for pointing out this obvious fact.

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Please quote where I told you to "shut up", using those exact words.

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Wait? Who's protecting the team while you're hiding in your bubble? None of your powers help your teammates (Leadership, Dispersion bubble, etc) when you're in the PFF.

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Well, when you have ALL the aggro in the room... YOU'RE protecting the team. When the aggro "peels" off of you, you turn off the PFF.

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Repulsion bomb doesn't always toss people, in fact the ones a Defender would need tossed for his own safety are the exact ones that almost never get tossed. They get slightly pushed back, but not before they can attack.

Also you ahve to stand still and wait for a pulse to register before they "fly back" IF the go back at all.

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Are you talking about Repulsion Bomb here or Repulsion Field? I'm confused because Repulsion Bomb doesn't "pulse".

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Almost NO player wants to be on a team where the bad guys are sporadically and randomly tossed all over the place.

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I definately agree to that, that's why I make sure to use KB as "crowd control", especially on AoE teams to knock the enemies all into the "big mass" for maxiumum AoE goodness.

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The only thing that needs deflating is that ego.

You made a thread for FF suggestions, then brag about it getting stickied and a stupid title that no one would have noticed had you not mentioned it

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Hmmm:
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I am nobody. I have NO authority, I do not work for NCSoft, never have, probably never will. I also have never had any personal relationship with any NCSoft employee and as far as I know, have never had ANY of my PMs responded to. The title under my name was given to me by a forum moderator. It MEANS nothing.

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Yes, I'm just FILLED with ego!

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when people suggest changes you don't like, instead of explaining why, overall, those changes aren't good you just tell them they need to be playing how you play

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O RLY? -

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I play in a very unusual manner that makes use of ALL the tools in my toolbelt to their full advantage. I DON'T expect everyone to play like me, I don't WANT everyone to play like me.

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And the only reasons I've "shut people's ideas down" are for two reasons, thematic reasons and "cottages". The thematic reasons I'm realizing slowly can be explained away, I'm backing off on those, the "cottages" I'm tossing out because the devs don't think that they are constructive. Here is the quote from Castle again:

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Seriously, it *is* a good policy -- it provides structure within which to do things. Without structure, there's chaos. How would you like it if tomorrow you logged in and, say, Build Up now built a small cottage at your chosen location, instead of adding to your damage? It's a silly example, admittedly, but it's to prevent such wholesale changes from happening. I *could* overturn it, in specific cases, if it were truly needed, but in the case being discussed here, it is not truly needed. There are MANY options that have been discussed that do not involve changing the core use of the power.

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Whenever I say "no cottages", that's what I'm referring to.

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instead of explaining why, overall, those changes aren't good you just tell them they need to be playing how you play and to hell with their own preferences or playstyle.

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O RLY? -

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Here is the essence and the source of this entire conversation. We are trying to make the set more "active" AND more attractive to the "average" player. I would have to say magicj (if you don't have me on ignore by now) that you and I are NOT the "average" player. We agree that with the simple effects that these powers provide it creates alot of "extra" effects in the meta-game. But most people don't, won't, or can't see that. What we need is more REAL effects so that the "average" player will see themselves making more of an obvious difference to their team's success. That is what will make the PRIMARY more flashy and attractive to more players. Right now all the other primaries are more flashy and are arguably more useful against AVs/GMs. We need to fix that somehow.

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Next.....

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Odd thing happened, looking over my post I don't see me saying throw out the whole set. In fact I only stated a desire to see two of quite possibly the least used powers in FF (RB an RP) altered both in fairly minor and very VERY team friendly ways.

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Repulsion Field- Garbage. Needs to be totally redesigned.

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Repulsion Bomb- Garbage. Total Redesign/replacement.

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Detention Field- Scrap it.

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I'm sorry, that's a THIRD of the powerset, 3 out of 9 that you want to "scrap". My mistake, I used hyperbole.

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For instance name a FFer that doesn't have the holy Trinity of bubbles and still gets not only invited to teams but remains in them after telling them this fact...None.

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True, which is part of what this whole conversation is about. The other powers need to have such a use that the other teammates actually see a BENEFIT from them being used. See, some people are on one side (let's call it the bottomless pit) and they want to see the whole set redesigned from the ground up. And some other people like magicj are on the other side (let's call it Mt. Everest) and want to see NO change to the set whatsoever. I'm standing on the beach between the two asking for change, but controlled change over time. Something that will make the set more attractive, but not change it in a drastic way. It's an unenviable position because I get hit from both sides. That's life.

And what the heck is a Gilderoy?