BellaStrega

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I aggree 100%. However, when certain sets are good in all areas, then they do need to be balanced. Where is Dark's weak area? Rad?

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Why, in the most emphasized area in the endgame - status effects. Dark and Rad do not have any kind of status protection buff. Rad offers status resistance which shortens duration, but it doesn't actually stop them from happening. Most villain status attacks seem to have a really high accuracy on top of that.

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It looks fantastic! I can't wait.

About trick arrows for controllers, as someone who primarily plays controllers, I would rather you guys skip on another defender primary power added to the controller secondaries, and give us some unique secondary powers in I6. Every time you guys do this, it's an annoyance to both Defenders, and even some of us controllers who would rather our AT's be distinct.


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As with most things Controller, I'm on Red's side in this. I was looking forward to the sets being Defender-only, and still want to see elemental secondaries for controllers (Fire/ice/earth).

I'd love to see a psychic-style buff/debuff set, but I think that should go to both controllers (Mind Control) and defenders (Psychic Blast).

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weeeee more neg energy resistent baddies for my warshade..haha
seriously though, the new zone looks pretty cool. i LOVED striga.

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Oh, stop complaining. The number of negative-resistant villains is balanced by the larger number of energy-vulnerable villains.

(check my sig for characters before assuming an inappropriate level of seriousness in my response)

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Yay more shared power sets between controllers and defenders. There was not enough overlap already.

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My thoughts exactly! Yeah for only one primary to call our own!

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Kinda weird when you consider that the developers refuse to let scrappers and tanks share more powersets for diversity reasons.

Uh huh.. Riiiiiiight.

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Yes. Energy Melee for Scrappers! Start the campaign today!

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It's not diversity - the devs don't want to give scrappers attacks with a BI of 9-12.

Selene Daemon, Dark/Dark scrapper, Champion server.

Closeup

Side view, closeup.

Back.

Ready to fight evil.

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For my part, I think they DO fit an AT in comics: shapeshifters. Not as well as we'd like, certainly, but... it's partly there.

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I don't think they fit the image of shapeshifters - Mystique, Chameleon Boy, etc. Closer to Wolfsbane or Catseye, but those two had nothing but their narrow selection of forms.

They certainly are shapeshifters, just not in the classical superhero sense.

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The tar patches by themselves are really enough, though.

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Kind of makes the whole "omg defender synergy!" thing a bit suspect though.

This is the same thing as the Range=Defense crap the Blasters deal with. Range isn't a Blaster's Strength... Melee is their weakness.

Grouping isn't really a Defender's strength... soloing is their weakness.

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So you're trying to say that the glass isn't half full, it's half empty? Gotcha.

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+4 mobs? Since when? You might be able to affect them, but I seriously doubt "floor" their accuracy/damage by yourself at +4.

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The math has been done many times. You can get something like 300% -ToHit on your own between your powers and Fluffies. I'm not making it up. And like I said, by the 3rd or 4th Dark you're adding almost nothing. Two DNs is -75% damage, and all the mobs will be at 5% ToHit. Other than the Tar Patches, there's not a lot to add to that...

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The tar patches by themselves are really enough, though.

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No an unstoppable duo is a DA scrapper or fire tanker + a bubbler.


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Bubblers can do nothing about a DA's end. Empathy's much better (+Def, +Recharge, +Damage, +Accuracy, +Recovery, +Regen)

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For darks, in addition to tar patch 8 times over(doing 340% total dmg, not base dmg)
Shadowfall x8, its defense and resist stack togother
not to mention anywhere between 8 & 24 Dark Servants running about
Darkest Night, totally gimping mobs accuracy and dmg output to miniscule numbers

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You forget the 8 X Darkest Night (ie. 10% damage (the minimum) and a *whopping* 640% accuracy debuff.)

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A single Dark Defender is already capable of flooring accuracy and damage on +4 mobs. Because of the purple patch it's not really worth fighting above that level. A second Dark Defender adds a bit... but by the 4th or 5th, you're just getting a ghetto Blaster with holds.

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Stacking DN + Tar Patch, with tactics to boost everyone's accuracy, makes it more than feasible for a team of 8 dark defenders to take on higher than +4.

Very similar mechanics work for Radiation defenders and controllers.

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Wow, that seems strange. I beat my kinetics controller friend by a decent chunk with my TG and he has an extra heal in there (last I checked). Weirder things have happened.

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I don't know, the margin was much wider than it should've been if I had 2xAcc, 4xHeal and he had 1xAcc, 5xHeal.

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You sure about that 3 second animation? It really felt more like 1.5 to 2 or so. I noticed it a lot when they dropped the animation time, and I cant imagine myself noticing a 1 second drop. Maybe its just the placebo effect kicking in heh.

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It uses the same animation as Soul Drain, which is 3 seconds (or so it appears to me). Given how many times the animation has been too slow to catch teammates, I'm inclined to believe it's 3, maybe 2, but no less than that. It's still a big improvement over the original.

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Transfusion does -regen too. Fire/Kin should be able to solo him without too much trouble. Your Controller friend just isn't creative enough.

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The -regen is handy, but so is the -dmg, -acc, -resist, and the ability to lock him down when he's vulnerable to control.

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I'd throw the tanker to the wolves and take 7 of any defenders (except bubblers, sorry guys), preferably some rads and darks, AS LONG as they had actually taken and slotted their secondaries! A defender without slotted blasts is handicapped.

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I'd so take a bubbler. The bubbles + debuffs mesh nicely. They give a margin that makes errors less dangerous.

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EDIT: Even my own SG doesn't get what -Regen can do. We went after Infernal in an 8 man team last night. 6 of the team members went to clean up the Summoning Altar and the roomful of demons while the tank went after Infernal. I tagged along with the tank and TGed Infernal for him. The tank had almost killed Infernal by himself by the time the rest of the team got back and took off his last sliver of health. And who got the congratulations for it? Hint, not me...

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I offered to sk up to help a DM/DA scrapper against Madame of Mystery, indicating that the big thing that makes her tough is her regen, and I have -regen in my attacks...but was turned down because "it probably wouldn't work anyway."

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I'd also make that trade. Even if it was an Ice Tanker.

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I'd rather have the seven defenders, especially if two of them are empathy. The rest can be any combination of rad, dark, kinetics, bubbles, and storm.

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Oddly, I saw the potential to build a strangely accurate duplicate of that Star Brand guy with a peace bringer (other forms notwithstanding). For those of you (most of you i bet) who don't know him, he was a 'new universe' fellow that had a weapon that imbued him with a strange sort of 'energy body' within, that allowed him super strength (those melee thingies), flight, energy blasting, and of course he had a pretty nifty nova too.

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Also, a self-rez.

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I looked up red caps in an image search and all I got were hats, bottle caps, and a rooster.

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Redcaps are faerie who...er... well, they have red caps because they dip them in their victims' blood.

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I liked the first new one, posted about it somewhere else.

I got the first issue in the beginning of June, which I thought was great because the other ones came somewhere around the 10th of the month. The first issue says June.

So...how is it some of you already have July's? I don't.

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I received the first issue in the first week of June. The second issue arrived today.

There's a lack of consistency at work.

What they're doing is kind of like a literary device called in media res. Which is to say it drops you right in the middle of the action. Unlike actual in media res, we're not going to flash back to the beginning and find out what led to that point. However, I don't mind this, as I already know the characters' backgrounds to a certain extent, and the trials and tribulations they've undergone prior to City of Heroes' timeframe.

I would love to see a series covering the Rikti War or other events in the iconic characters' history, but this seems to work fine as well.

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It would be exploited by people knowing that a mob won't follow very far. I'm more in the camp of "get too many mobs on you, you die".

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I know, I just think that it's a bad idea.

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TG's animation time got considerably sped up. AND it works on foes that die during its animation. If the kineticists target drops, they get no love. TG lowers damage, accuracy and regen. Having used both, TG is considerably easier, and considerably better IMO.

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TG used to have the same animation as Bitter Ice Blast (I think), which was four seconds. It was replaced with the same animation as Soul Drain, which is three seconds.

I've used both, too. Each has different drawbacks.

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How much was the kinetics controller outhealing you by? Is your TG 6 slotted for heals? Couldnt have been much, given how massive TG's heal is.

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About 100-150 points or so, actually. I had two accuracies slotted, but I don't think that replacing them with heals would've closed the gap that much.

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I never said every aspect of the set is overpowered. Most of them I think are fine as well, I'm just speaking about a few things I witnessed recently which have been a cause for concern for me, and I'm merely pointing a few things out. Even though your teamates may move while you're trying to cast it, the AoE around yourself isn't the only place where there's going to be the healing AoE. With DS's a little spread out, that area of a heal can -massive-.

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Well, sort of. It's not really advantageous to slot the heals in Dark Servant. if you have three out in a clump, then you'll get effectively a fully slotted heal every eight seconds or so (if they use it consistently) or if they're spread out, they'll top off your health and help a bit. If you're in over your head, they won't necessarily save you.

Three fluffies and the DM defender in one spot can create quite a nice healing blanket, provided people stay nearby.

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As I said before, it's much easier to move yourself around as opposed to an enemy.

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Yes, and as I responded, it is next to impossible to move your teammates around or keep them from moving when they're taking damage. Because of Twilight Grasp's long activation, I think this is really a wash between the two.

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While using my kinetic defender, I've found that whenever a squishy needs a heal, there's no enemy within sufficient range for the heal to reach it. The AoE range isn't huge. However, I'm sure the AoE range is the same as heal other/transfusion as it is on twilight grasp. The range may not be huge, but it's not small enough that you have to put yourself in a "death-zone" when casting it on a tanker or scrapper. I've thrown off healing auras close enough to a meleeist to reach them, yet far enough for me to be snagged in any crossfire.

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And Empathy heals don't draw aggro.

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Not only that, I only have the defence boost of maneuvers to keep me safe from any AoE that does manage to reach me. Also, an accuracy SO and a tohit buff, such as tactics, can jackup the tohit % of both transfusion and twilight grasp high enough that the small accuracy bonus on transfusion is pretty much moot.

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That's arguable, and there's still the double endurance cost and triple activation time.

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A pet who spams holds, heals and immobolizes is far more usefull than you make it sound.

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I didn't say it was useless. I said it was unfair to demand a nerf for Twilight Grasp on the basis of Dark Servant, and I pointed to some things kinetics does that are fairly potent at high levels as well.

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The array of powers may not seem huge, especially when compaired to fulcrum shift and transferance, but don't forget pets do all of that independantly. They can throw those out a hell of a lot faster than I can go through a chain of attacks with my kinetic defender. I'm not saying that TG should be nerfed down to the same healing power as healing aura or something of the like, but I think it should be looked into at least.

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You're focusing on one aspect of dark miasma that's actually not overpowered - the healing - and asking that it be nerfed. Fearsome Stare? Sure, that's definitely overpowered. Tar Patch? It's arguable. At first, I would've said yes, but the recharge and the fact that debuffs scale according to relative level makes it much less potent than it might appear on paper. Dark Servant? Well, it throws out Pet. Gaze, Twilight Grasp, and Tenebrous Tentacles. It does practically no damage (Chill of the Night is very minor, if autohit, and fluffies don't like to go into melee range anyway. TT doesn't really do enough damage to be noticeable when they use it). The main thing they do is lock down random villains and spam heals...which makes it easier for a DM defender to blast more rather than focus entirely on defending. However, due to the fact that you can only suggest where fluffies go (by going there yourself) and the fact that you really can't afford to slot the healing over recharge, which means the heals aren't that big comparatively, I don't think it's out of whack. Maybe there needs to be a minimum damage you can debuff to, which would limit fluffy effectiveness against AVs and monsters, but the heal aspect itself? It's not overpowered.

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I'm sorry for coming off as if it's an easy task to pull this off, as I didn't mean to, but even so, it's easier to get into a position where you can heal them, be it perhaps after they stop moving or something. Blasters can have some lengthy animation times too. *Looks at AR blasters*

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Yes, but again... It's not easy to heal people who immediately run from you as soon as you start the TG animation, because they don't realize you're there, or that you're about to heal, or they're trying to get away so that next shot doesn't drop them. Heck, if they're taking fire, you are risking taking aoe damage as a consequence.

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For the dark defender, perhaps not, but for the fluffies... Well, it does add an unfair advantage. Multiple healing aura strength heals can be pulled off very closely togeather, while also debuffing an enemy. For a single dark defender, the arguement of the 3 second cast time I think is viable, but you can easily have 3 DSs out, it doesn't really matter, because the other DS's can easily be throwing out other powers while one of them takes the 3 seconds to heal.

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I think "unfair advantage" is an extreme overstatement here.

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Kali, it might be wiser for us to cary this on ingame as opposed to here on the boards. Judging from the lengths of our post, and the other discussion we had that one night, it'll end up being a long debate :P. Might as well talk to eachother ingame and get some general ideas going there so we can avoid any redundant posts here

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Well, I think you should try playing Dark Miasma and get a sense for how it plays. Where it's powerful is not necessarily where you think it's powerful.

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* Manticore also dropped that Statesman has a unique ability which is represented on his Heroclix figure: The lightning of Zeus.

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only one problem......that lightning bolt on the figure is on ALL Heroclix figures. It shows how many attacks that figure can make on his turn. just FYI

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I was not referring to his attacks. I was referring to Quake and Pulse Wave. I baked those into the design of his dial to represent his ability to call upon the Lightning of Zeus.

~M

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Yeah, Incarnate refers to a deity. Statesman is "Zeus Incarnate" Zeus in the Flesh. Zeus inhabits the body of Statesman.

Likely hades inhabits the body of Lord Recluse.

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Image Comic's City of Heroes Issue 2 is a very good read on this very topic............(I refuse to say more for the BIG SPOILER that would ensue, though many probably already have discovered this)

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Check the first post.

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First of all tankers shouldn't be able to herd that many mobs in the first place. There should be a limit. Say surrounded by more than 20 mobs....bam... your armor drops. Dead tanker, Dead team... problem solved. UNLESS he has a defender there to pull his bacon out of the fire. But why penalize EVERYONE because of an often exploited game mechanic? My scrapper dosen't herd.... so why should I Lose the one AoE I have?

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A real solution for herding: Make villains unwilling to travel more than a certain distance from their spawn points. It'd have to be fairly short, but it could be done.

My DM/DA would be crippled without her AoEs... Dark Consumption, Soul Drain, Dark Regeneration, Oppressive Gloom, Cloak of Fear...Okay, Shadow Maul's not a huge deal and Energy Torrent is more a bonus than anything else.

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Jack, let me hit a nail on the head:

So long as ANY archetype can hit a resist or defense cap (or equivalent) on their own, merely by their own power choices and slotting, you will never achieve this goal.

I have no problem with melee ATs being tough in solo missions. That's fine. But adding a Defender, of any flavor, ought to make the melee player say "cool, I can now arrest mobs faster than if I was solo."

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Defenders can buff damage, defense, resists, endurance recovery, health regeneration, speed and recharge. They can also debuff villain accuracy, defense, damage, damage resistance, recharge, and speed.

Defenders aren't solely about resistance, defense, and healing. Adding a defender will make the mission go faster with all of these benefits. As I said in my first post, my scrappers can solo missions without a defender, but with a defender will finish them much faster. More damage, better defense, more endurance, and healing all combine to just make everything go more smoothly. The problem is that the benefits defenders provide aren't even always obvious to the defender - I've had empaths tell me that they were adding nothing to missions when duoing with me when we were, as a duo, finishing them in 1/4 to 1/3 the time I would do them solo. This already exists - the ability to cap resists or defense isn't really the problem (although the ability to cap resists and floor villain to-hit in one character may certainly be a problem).

I won't rate you one star for it, but I don't think the removal of AoEs from scrappers and tankers is at all likely - and blaster AoE sets are far better at the AoE damage than scrappers and tankers in general. I think spines/dark can approach a fire blaster, and fire tankers have their own thing going.