Huge slew of “consolidated discussion” threads for I5 changes, for your info:
- XP Changes: “No experience debt until level 10; half experience debt in missions; experience awards for defeating enemies level 25+ increased.” Sounds encouraging.
- Mission Customization: “Many existing missions have been updated with hostage escorts, friendly heroes who fight by your side, villain wave attacks and more.” Sounds interesting.
- Sonic Powers: Blast, Debuff. Sounds (heh) fun.
- Blaster changes: “Blaster hit points increased. Overall increase in the damage output (and thus survivability) of Blasters.” Sounds like better days for blasters.
- Max targets: “Set a maximum number of targets that can be affected by most offensive powers: AoE Debuffs, Ranged cones, and Melee AoE (PBAoE) are set to 10. Some Large PBAoE (like Nova) are set to 16.
Melee Cones are set to 5. Ranged AoE damage powers are set to 16.
Taunts (including Tanker inherent Taunt – ‘PunchVoke’) is set to 5.” Sounds questionable. Intent is to reduce herding, which is probably good, but if it hurts abilities while in actual melee, it’s not so good. The numbers seem pretty decent to avoid that second possiblity, though — except that the Tank Taunt seems way too low (unless we’re talking about *just* Punchvoke, as opposed to the Taunt power or the Taunt aura from INV, etc.); that’s going to definitely hurt Tank abilities to protect the party. - Controller changes: “Controllers will do double damage to a target (non pvp) that is Immobilized, Disoriented, Slept or Held. … Controller AoE Holds, Disorients and Sleeps (and a few others like Quicksand and Ice Slick) recharge times have been doubled and duration cut in half. AoE Immobilize and Phase Shift powers were not affected. … Controller Pets … can no longer stack. … Illusion Control/Phantasm can still summon multiple decoys; always summons 3 Decoys.” Sounds irksome. As a controller, I don’t particularly care about doing damage as much as controlling. Reducing AoE far outbalances the extra damage done during.
- Villain powers: Reduced Lt./Boss/Elite Boss Accuracy (ToHit). Reduced Boss Accuracy (ToHit). CoT minion and power changes. Sounds “meh.” Nice, but not compelling.
- Instant Healing: “Changed Regeneration/Instant Healing from a Toggle Power to a Click power. Gave it a new animation so it activates faster.” Lower END, higher recharge time. See also Integration nerf.
- Scrapper Changes: “Scrapper damage increased for all powers.” Sounds scrappery!
And many more (than I have time to go through right now).
Biggest bits seem to be in the Global Defense Nerfs Changes thread, which is basically, “Every defensive/resistance power does less, costs more, fire less frequently.” Yikes.
If nothing else, this Issue will probably obsolete every Guide on the boards.
Some interesting perspective on the changes (endorsed by Cuppajo) here.
And an official Statesman statement on “the vision thing.”
Consolidated list here.
A lot of chatter about I5 last night during our game. A lot of concern that a big bash like our final battle would not have been doable — but also confidence that tactics would shift and life would go on. I suspect, by the time the dust settles, that latter will be true.
And here are a couple I missed:
UI:
– Contact names now appear a different color from other NPC names.
– There is now a new option to disable dragging powers around in the power tray.
– New slash commands:
/reply – replies to the last person who sent you a /tell.
/tell_last or /tl – sends a tell to the last player you sent a /tell to.
– Improved text editing on Character ID screen.
– Options menu rearranged slightly for ease of use.
Nice. Little things, but they’ll count.