Adeon Hawkwood

This is tricky. While I like most of the new content itself I find that a lot of new enemy groups are extremely painful to solo on a squishy character. Not quite Malta level annoying but definitely getting up there.

Now I don't expect every new enemy group to be at the level of Council or Freakshow in terms of difficulty but most of the newer groups seem to be significantly higher difficulty.

Yeah I was getting mixed up with the Kismet Defense/Endurance/Recharge IO which is 2 A-Merits. Kind of weird that the less valuable one is two but oh well.

The Beta forums. since you're a VIP you should have access. You can find them at the top level of the forums:
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/index.php

I think the wiki may be wrong. I'm 90% certain I checked a couple of days ago and the Kismet proc is 2 alignment merits. Unless I'm imagining things again.

EDIT: Ok, I was wrong, it's the Kismet Defense/Endurance/Recharge that's two A-Merits. sorry for the confusion .

I believe your quotes may be in in the wrong place. The command line arguments should be outside the quotes, so when you look at the path in the shortcut it should read:

"C:\Program Files (x86)\NCSoft\Launcher\NCLauncher.exe" /LaunchGame=CohTest

It unlocks the Alpha and Omega costumes from Going Rogue.

My view on Vengeance is that if I get to use it great but if I don't it's a power choice that doesn't need slotting and gives me room for an extra LotG 7.5%.

Now there are other powers that can work well instead but I wouldn't call Vengeance a waste, if you've taken the pre-requisites it's comparable to most of the other options for a one-slot power.

You are correct. The problem is that Blasters don't get Focused Accuracy so they can only get perma-FastSnipe if their secondary is Devices or Energy (theoretically Dark can also get it perma but it need a LOT of recharge).

Yes, but you're high enough in Paragon rewards to get them as a Premium.

The problem I have with factoring Zapp is that it is interruptable. Just looking at single target damage factoring in Zapp, VS and accounting for recharge Elec seems to do ok compared to Energy BUT this assumes you never get hit while casting Zapp*.

If you get interrupted on a Zapp that screws your damage to hell. Not to mention situations where it's impossible to avoid taking frequent minor damage (such as the final fight in Keyes trial).

*Note I only considered up to about 100% recharge. Above that Elec will drop off due to cast time outweighing recharge time.

I still don't believe it will. Sure, we'll get a surge in the popularity of Devices Blasters and they'll be FotM for a while but then they'll die off when people realize that taking Devices means no using Build Up to buff AoEs.

Frankly I'd expect to see City of Energy Manipulation before City of Devices. That way people can have their cake and eat it to but I think with Devices they'll end up deciding that the cake is a lie.

It is a major buff for Devices and Tactics (although the amount varies depending on the blast set), I just don't see it as making Tactics "required" for Defenders and Corruptors. Part of the reason it's such a buff for Devices is not due to the nature of Snipes but due to the nature of Devices. Devices has always had weak damage due to the lack of Build Up added onto a lack of melee attacks (which even if you don't use them provide the option for hard hitting ST attacks). This change enhances it's ST damage relative to other sets.

As for Defenders and Corruptors. Yes, it is effectively buffing the single target damage of those ATs relative to Blasters the question is, is that a problem? Personally I would say no but for a weird reason. Soloing on Defenders and Corruptors tends to be painful on a lot fo sets because they lack good tools for taking down bosses. Even with Def/Corr damage modifiers you can normally AoE the minions in less time than it takes to kill the boos (at least in my experience). Blasters, even using sets like AR and Electric don't have that problem due to their higher damage modifiers. So I guess I'm less concerned about them having less FastSnipe time.

As for the "Magic Number" issue I can see where you're coming from and it is a valid point, I just don't see an option I like more. The damage and recharge times for the current snipes are balanced around them having an interrupt time. If the interrupt time is taken away then either the damage/recharge need to be rebalanced as if they were a standard single target attack or there needs to be some limiter on the ability to FastSnipe either limited uptime or forcing some sacrifices elsewhere in the build. The current 22% to Hit does a bit of both. Most Blasters will have limited uptime on it and other characters will require some build sacrifices (since even if you take Tactics normally you probably don't have 22% To Hit).

Using To Hit does have some advantages from a development point of view. It's a generic rule that can be (in theory) evenly applied to all characters and means that a character with limited ability to FastSnipe solo can benefit from team buffs.


As for changing it there are a few options I can see:

First is the obvious one, drop the idea entirely and make all snipes standard single target attacks. Kind of boring and would violate the Cottage Rule but may end up being the least controversial.

Next option would be to set the To Hit bar per AT so as to severely limit which powersets can hit it. The problem there is two-fold. First how do you decide which sets get it? Devices is an obvious choice but what about Defenders and Corruptors? The buff/debuff sets that most need the help (Force Fields, Empathy etc.) generally don't have self To Hit buffs. Overall I think this would be a bad idea.

Decreasing the To Hit bar to 17% would mean that any character with a snipe has the option to get perma-FastSnipe. The upside of this is that it would allow players to decide if they want to take Tactics in their build just to get perma-FastSnipe or if they are with just having it through Aim and Build Up. The downside is potential power creep and instilling the idea that Tactics is mandatory for all characters with a Snipe (except Scrappers and Stalkers who are unlikely to take it anyway). I'm not sure it would be necessary, especially for Blasters who get almost 50% uptime anyway, but I can definitely see people thinking that way. I'd also be concerned about power creep, if everyone can get perma FastSnipe it might be better just to rebalance the attacks as standard attacks.

The final option would be to get rid of the To Hit requirement and just make certain powers trigger FastSnipe mode. Specifically Targeting Drone (Devices version only, not the APP version), Aim, Build Up, Power Boost and the various renamed/combined versions of them in different sets and Epic pools. The advantage of this is that it would give relatively consistent access to FastSnipe fro different characters. Devices does get a specific boost but as I mentioned earlier I think it could use the help. The majority of Blasters would get about 50% up time using Aim and Build Up with Energy doing a little better. Defenders, Corruptors and Dominators would (mostly) get about 25% uptime from their attack set and have the option to take another FastSnipe power in their epic pool if they want. There are two sets that would be a problem in this scheme (and I'm actually concerned are a problem with the current scheme as well): Assault Rifle and Dark Manipulation. For Dark I'd probably make it so that Soul Drain trigger 30seconds of FastSnipe even if you don't hit any enemies. Assault Rifle is a bit trickier, it doesn't really have anywhere to stick a FastSnipe tag an it's one of the two powersets that could really use it.

Don't worry about that. I'll happily argue with anyone about anything. As long as you have a reasonable argument I'm fine with it. Plus I have a short memory so I forget any arguments in a week or so anyway .

Also, I'm sorry for being sarcastic in my last post, you didn't deserve that, I was just getting frustrated with the various sky-falling posts regarding that change.

It depends on what you're fighting. If you just go up against the older non-Arachnos groups then yes you are fine. The problem is that the power level of NPC groups has been going up. Newer groups tend to have a lot more defense or to hit debuffs than older groups so building in a bit more To Hit margin makes a lot of sense to me.

For VIP powersets the character will remain locked and unplayable until you purchase the power set but there is no risk of them being deleted.

Similarly if you have any characters with VIP costume parts they will keep their costume but you will have to remove any VIP parts or purchase them separately. This doesn't apply to the Tier 9 VIP costumes which you have effectively paid for but does apply to things like Chainmail or Imperial Defense.

No. While EATs have to be unlocked in game by getting a character to level 20 they also need to be unlocked for an account either by becoming a VIP or purchasing them specifically in the market.

All of these are correct.

At the moment and based on the information we have they are not included.

However, in the long thread where Arbiter Hawk was discussing the changes someone asked about increasing the range of the Immobilize powers in Blaster secondaries and Arbiter Hawk said he was open to the idea. So I think that there is a possibility that we convince him to increase the various blast set single target utility powers increased to 80ft. It's on my list of things to ask about in the I24 beta.

The same goes for AR. There are two issues that I have with this argument. First if the combo was viable before FastSnipe it's still viable after FastSnipe even if it can't FastSnipe. Yes it's a buff but I don't really see it as essential.

Secondly as far as I'm concerned Tactics (or an equivalent power such as Targeting Drone or Farsight) has always been essential. Missing an attack really, really sucks and the newer content has featured more and more enemies with either to hit debuffs, defense buffs or simply higher level than us so stacking a bit more To Hit on my characters has always been high priority. The majority of them have two (or even three) leadership toggles and unless I have a To Hit buff already one of the two will be Tactics. Now I'll admit most of them don't have 22% To Hit buff because I generally aimed for 15% but that's just a slotting change.

Well the purpose of the Blaster secondary changes is to give all Blasters easy access to a either a decent level of +regen (approximately 340% after enhancements) or an equivalent amount of healing or absorb.

Drain Psyche differs from the other powers in three ways:
1. It requires the Blaster to enter melee range to get the bonus
2. The bonus is not permanent without significant IO investment (and the changes are primarily balanced for SOs)
3. The amount of regen is potentially quite a bit higher while it is active

Now obviously for a heavily IO'd blaster played by someone who can maneuver in and out of melee these don't present any problems but that is not going to be the case for all /MM Blasters. Now none of these facts mean that Drain Psyche has to be changed but they suggest that the power needs to be reviewed. To my mind the key questions are:
1. Is it ok to require Blasters to enter melee range to get what is intended to be a new class feature?
2. For an SO'd Blaster does the increased power of Drain Psyche compensate for the decreased uptime when compared to other sets?

If the answer to either of these is no then DP should probably be changed. Of course both of these questions are subjective so what really matters is not what you or I may think the answers should be but what the devs think they should be.

The plan is to mostly run human and swap to Dwarf for the really tough fights or if I just feel like smashing stuff.

I took a look (probably more since I'd no doubt forget to use hasten anyway). Changing one of the Concealment powers for Hasten I'd still be at about 110s on Eclipse which isn't perma. Similarly I'm still going to be limited to two fluffies at a time. I could change the build to get Hasten closer to permanent but then I'd lose defense.

You've got to understand I really, really hate Hasten. It's not a logical thing I just hate that the power exists at all and taking it pretty much kills all interest I have in a character. The only character who survived taking it was my Crab Spider and that was only because taking it allowed him to have 6 spider-bots out at all times. Maybe if I play my Warshade more and start enjoying him I'll be ale to respec him into taking Hasten but at the moment he's unlikely to survive that.

How about looking at a set that doesn't have non-standard T1 and T2 attacks and actually uses the recharge and damage scale for the attacks on the different ATs. Energy Blast is probably a good example.

Yep, hence why I'm not very keen on the idea. On the other hand I would like Dominators to have some way to FastSnipe without having to rely on inspirations and that would be one option.