BellaStrega

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
OK - here's the most likely outcome...

If you own both games, you get all options - the new CoV sets will be accessible for your heroes.

[/ QUOTE ]

remember kids this isn't for sure yet.
Via les Faultine Trial!

afterall, they want good/evil to obvious on sight (cause that always works in the movies) in the PvP zones.
'zomg look! a hero you can tell by the bland costume! geddem!'

'lookit 'em skulls on that sucker! It must be a Villian! It's Coming right for us!'
BLAM!

[/ QUOTE ]

I usually tell by the orange names.

[ QUOTE ]
Well Matla does have superheroes in it's employ. Usually they are brainwashed, blackmailed, threatended, or paid to work for them.

[/ QUOTE ]

Sorry I didn't think this needed to be said: She was working with Longbow and got sapped.

[ QUOTE ]

Oddly enough they maintain their appearence in the game around the mid to high 30s, which is different from the Tsoo who have been moved from a 15-ish group to a 30-40 group in the advanced islands.

The strange thing is that the shot with the Crey having Devoured in containment is actually a scene from within a Lowbow base in the Nerva Achapelego. Longbow and Crey working together? Most concerning.

[/ QUOTE ]

Tsoo start appearing around 15th level in the newspaper missions. You can find groups of Blue Ink Men in St. Martial from 30-40, too.

Also, one contact used to be a superhero, but lost her powers to "friendly fire from a sapper." Hmm.

[ QUOTE ]
The NDA is already lifted,so its okay to ask about CoV now.

As for your questions,yes there are Crey and Carnival of Shadows but I heard someone mentioned that villains can fight them(Carnies) at lower levels instead of the 40+ range like in CoH.

[/ QUOTE ]

I've seen Carnies in the 30s. Believe me, when you come across their hangout, you won't be able to miss it.

One of my contacts in St. Martial is a Carnie. Also, I've sen Crey in Nerva.

I hope that it works better than Defiance.

That is to say, I hope players will notice a difference before they're one shot away from defeat.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
With Enhancement Diversification comes a benefit for ALL City of Heroes powers.

Every power, across the board, is getting a 13.33% reduction in its Endurance cost.

[/ QUOTE ]

And Tanker/Scrapper Defenses & Resists?

Scrapper: "Wow team wipe!"

Tanker: "Yeah, but we didn't run out of endurance!"



[/ QUOTE ]

Hey, it worked for my ice tanker after issue 5.

[ QUOTE ]
And that is why we need to do testing, gather data and present arguments in a calm manner.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, because this got such good results the last three times. Please consider that: The last three times. This is out of hand.

Also, [censored] testing. I'm sick of it. I'm tired of the devs saying "We're changing your character drastically. Again. Please go test these numbers so we can make a few token changes. If you're really good, we might lie to you about the likelihood of future changes."

[ QUOTE ]
Due note that this info abuot ED was only brought up on the CoV beta. Originally they had no intention of telling CoH untill it actually hit with the cov launch.

[/ QUOTE ]

Not completely true. NDA would lift before CoV went live, and it would get out then, if not sooner.

[ QUOTE ]
We are REGENS
We will take this on the chin
We will adapt
We we still make EVERYONE bow down with awe.

Why?

Because my friends we are regens.

[/ QUOTE ]

We are tired, because Quick Recovery's getting nerfed too.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Well.. "liar" is not the right word. The upcoming ner.. er.. "change for the benefit of the game".. is a large change to the enhancement system, not to the powersets.

[/ QUOTE ]

What is a powerset made up of? Powers, right? So is it fair to say changes to powers ARE changes to a powerset, or are teh only changes to a powerset changes where powers are moved or powers are put in or taken out?

OK then, what do enhancements enhance? They enhance powers. Nothing else in the game, just powers. And NO powers come with 0 enhancement slots. Every single power has at least one. There is no such thing as a power without an enhancement slot.

Enhancements are POWER MODIFIERS. Saying changes to them is NOT a change to powers is like saying changes to allowable deductions is not a change to in income tax. That's nonsense.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm with Pilcrow, as this reaction snowballs.

As you point out, Ice still has some issues compared to other sets. As Circeus points out, Ice lacks sufficient smash/lethal mitigation when compared to other tanker primaries.

This is a step for the better, but there's still a way to go.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
We checked a change in so that Chillling Embrace will NOW be:

-.32 to Recharge
-.14 to Damage

I'll post tomorrow explaining these numbers...



[/ QUOTE ]
So States always does what he says?.....um where is the explanation?....lol

[/ QUOTE ]

Oh noes, he might be a day or two late! This is worse than the Regen Nerf Wars of '04!

[ QUOTE ]

For what it's worth, I agree completely. It's almost the default character creator male model. I suspect the story may have had the lions share of influence when this choice was made.

[/ QUOTE ]

And there's honestly nothing wrong with that.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
So...why just S/L damage?

[/ QUOTE ]

Exactly.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, seriously? If I'm jumping around being stealthy or weaving or whatever, do I just get lazy when I see an energy/etc attack heading my way?

[/ QUOTE ]

Smashing/Lethal because they might as well just add AoE defense if they're going to add defenses to all types.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
This is kinda interesting.

[/ QUOTE ]


Nice find Kali...

[/ QUOTE ]

Thank you.

Now if only I had been less tired and thought of linking to the "Nile turns to blood" stuff.

[ QUOTE ]

Not PvP that PvP he PvP can PvP honestly or PvP clearly PvP state PvP the PvP true PvP reasons PvP for PvP the PvP changes PvP "changes" PvP made.

[/ QUOTE ]

Because of course, this must be mentioned as often as possible, in case someone had forgotten about it in the last 30 seconds.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Every time Statesman has said a change will happen, it's happened or he's explained why it couldn't (like that "rage" ability for tankers).

[/ QUOTE ]

You mean Fury?

[/ QUOTE ]

There's a part of me that likes to record things as they actually happened, so while I might say "This ability was originally tested for tankers, but later given to brutes as 'Fury,'" I wouldn't ever call it Fury.

This is kinda interesting.

[ QUOTE ]
oh, he only SAID it would happen.

I'll believe it when I see it. And then when it hasn't been changed back in the 12 months following it. And then I'll start to not believe it again, just in preparedness.

[/ QUOTE ]

Every time Statesman has said a change will happen, it's happened or he's explained why it couldn't (like that "rage" ability for tankers).

Good luck and best wishes, mang. I'll miss you, and the weird flame wars your articles could generate.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Once again, proof that empirical data collected through in game testing and concise, polite posts are the best way to bring these things to a devs attention.

Good job.

[/ QUOTE ]

Polite posts, common sense, and thousands of emails have got us no where. The "only if Statesman says you're having fun or not having fun" way seems to prevail. Which is like having someone tell me I REALLY like eating spicy food no matter how much I'm crying, spitting it out, and simply saying "I do not like Spicey food!" Of course none of this could possibly mean I REALLY DO NOT LIKE spicey food.

[/ QUOTE ]

If you don't like spicy food you're no friend of mine.

Wait, who are you?

[ QUOTE ]

If you are talking invulnerable scrappers back then, its accurate we are talking about spines scrappers. Spine/Invulnerable scrappers in a herding sense were better than any Invulnerable tanker out there. They could handle a high enough level to gain a better exp per min ratio. This of course is situational, but with different mob types everything is situational. To this day, my regen can tank malaise better than my fire tank, but not as well as a stone tank. Back then when the resists for scrappers were higher, the difference in HP was offset by the better dmg scrappers did. Now, a year or so later, the roles are more defined in their capabilities.

[/ QUOTE ]

Er, the only thing Spines had going for it was a PBAoE damage toggle on top of Invincibility, in a herding sense. A tanker still had better survivability.

Also, nice cherrypicking of AVs with regard to Malaise. "My scrapper, who doesn't care about what type of damage is incoming could survive meleeing with a psionic AV, who completely pwned my fire tanker - who has no psi resistance. Further said AV is notoriously weak."

[ QUOTE ]
If you throw inspirations in the mix, anything is possible. In I3, I herded +3 Shadowhunter faster with my spines regen (using lucks only) than my fire tank. In I4, my tank was slightly faster, and in I5, my regen cant do it at all and my non burn fire/fire can.

[/ QUOTE ]

Blaze taunted in issue 3. If you were having an easier time gathering wolves with your spines scrapper than your fire tanker, you were perhaps doing something wrong with your fire tanker.

[ QUOTE ]
This proves you are right about a scrapper playing the role of a Tanker to a degree, but i think back in I2, scrappers were very very close in comparison to where there was little difference, and Invulnerable being the only one who did surpass the Tanker AT...Your original statement was never ever ever, when in fact Invulnerable scrappers were.

[/ QUOTE ]

Invulnerable scrappers were never ever ever ever as durable as invulnerable tankers, and you know this full well. For many situations, they were durable enough. Even before issue 3, all tanker attacks had inherent taunt, making aggro control superior to anything scrappers could manage, although not as good as it is now.

[ QUOTE ]
OK...here's what Chilling Embrace ONCE did...

-0.4 to Recharge

We changed it to...

-.32 to Recharge
-.07 to Damage (thought it was .1, to be honest)

Needless to say, Circeus is right - it's a mild nerf! Eek.

We checked a change in so that Chillling Embrace will NOW be:

-.32 to Recharge
-.14 to Damage

I'll post tomorrow explaining these numbers...

[/ QUOTE ]

Groovy. I'm looking forward to both the explanation and Circeus' analysis of what the numbers mean to ice tanker survivability.

Thank you for the clarifying post.

[ QUOTE ]

I think, back in the good ol' days, scrappers could tank sufficiently efficiently, that the only thing that could bring some of them down was the purple patch, and the purple patch is exponential in effect. The problem was that sometimes, the difference in efficiency between a really well-built scrapper and a really well-built tank went so high up the scale, that in effect the difference between the two was lower than the difference in difficulty between notches in the purple patch. In effect (and with made up numbers) it was entirely possible to have a scrapper and a tanker such that both could tank +8s, but neither could tank +9s - something like that.

[/ QUOTE ]

Scrappers tanking well enough was post-Purple Patch, and largely because of it - tanker defenses were valuable when you were fighting +8s, for example. The complaints largely came about in issue 2, precipitated by a few discontents in issue 1. The other thing that made a big difference was adding 10 more levels, and making it possible for scrappers to slot defenses and attacks rather thoroughly, and removing some of the sense of mediocrity scrappers had pre-issue 1.

[ QUOTE ]
Thus - just for some extreme cases - a scrapper might not be able to tank as well as a true tanker, but there were very few actual situations that existed where the difference between that scrapper and that tank was discernable. A distinction without a difference, as it were.

[/ QUOTE ]

Also, be clear that you're talking about Invuln scrappers here. Regen never could tank on the level of a tanker - it could handle infinite damage below a certain threshold, but invuln and stone tankers could handle much more than that due to capped resists, more hit points, and even moderate health regen (higher for stone than invuln). Dark Armor could cap smash/lethal, but couldn't tank at all without defender support or extensive inspiration use (I did tank Shadowhunter pre-stacking through the use of lucks and disciplines, with DE + Tough). Super Reflexes couldn't attack while using Elude until issue 2, and pre-issue 1, defensive values were half what they were until issue 5.

[ QUOTE ]
Mind you, I'm all for precision in language, especially when discussing more sensitive topics. Technically, scrappers as a group could never tank with the same efficiency as tankers as a group. However, there were many cases where scrappers could survive the tanking role to the same degree as tankers for all game situations ever encountered or were likely to be encountered. Those are subtly different statements, which probably helps perpetuates this argument.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, which is why I said, "A completely reasonable argument could be made that they could tank well enough, and that I'll grant you."

[ QUOTE ]

No, it's really not. Having a Tanker class to begin with was a bad idea. A whole section of heroes that can be beaten quickly, but they can't defeat enemies quickly either? That's guaranteed to be disappointing, and that's the way it has worked out. Over and over we've had people say they made a Tank because of the powersets, and then got upset because it wasn't fun. Even Statesman has said he regrets forming the archetyes so heavily around the classic MMO classes. The result was that they have had to raise the damage that Tanks do, but to offset that they've had to lower the ability to take damage. The whole thing isn't working out.

[/ QUOTE ]

Having a tanker in a superhero MMO isn't a great idea, no, but saying that "thus, both melee ATs should be one melee AT" is not really an improvement.

It could be argued that tankers should have been bricks, with offense primary/defense secondary, and given melee powersets with the slow recharging heavy hitting attacks that people have wanted for tankers for a long time (and to some extent, already have). However, that doesn't really leave room for characters like Spider-Man, Nightcrawler, Beast, Wolverine, Batman, and the like - melee characters who are not bricks, and who are thematically quite different..

[ QUOTE ]
Before the devs lowered the defense caps on Scrappers, Scrappers were able to *make* tanks using power pools. They were actually better than tanks because they could tank *and* defeat enemies in a reasonable amount of time.

[/ QUOTE ]

God, tankers with mature offense never had trouble defeating enemies in a reasonable amount of time. Ever. Ever. Ever. I'm so tired of that canard. Yes, you had 70% base scrapper damage, but you also had some hard-hitting attacks in most of the secondaries. If you had trouble defeating enemies in a reasonable amount of time, you were neglecting your attacks and blaming game mechanics.

And, scrappers could not tank as well as tankers. Never. Ever. Ever. Ever. That was never true, is not true, and never will be true. A completely reasonable argument could be made that they could tank well enough, and that I'll grant you.


[ QUOTE ]
I think that getting rid of Tanks now would be much harder than if they'd just shipped that way originally, but it's still worth considering. Change all Tanks to scrappers. Open up all the powersets to both sides, so an Axe/Regen character would become possible. Raise the Scrapper defense caps so that the former tankers could still tank if the wanted to sacrifice a few more powers to tanking.

It'd be painful, but it would be worth considering. It' probably too late in the game to do it, but it's worth discussing at least.

[/ QUOTE ]

If you're going to get rid of tankers, make them into bricks or something. Don't bother to turn them into scrappers.