BrandX

Originally Posted by Werner

Yes and yes, though I believe it was John Printemps that did something very similar with Claws/Regen. The most survivable builds, at least on paper, did NOT have soft-capped defense, but instead fell into the mid 30s somewhere. I can't remember what John's build had, but I assume it was something along those lines. Claws would be missing out on sky-high melee and lethal defense, but I'd give it the edge on active mitigation (Shockwave plus movement), plus you tend to be incarnate soft capped on demand with Moment of Glory and Shadow Meld. It might well be as survivable in practice in the right hands, just not on paper, and not without a little extra work.

But yes, add Broad Sword, Katana or Titan Weapons to ANY set, and you can get something pretty solid. Some benefit more than others of course. My Katana/Dark had better on-paper survivability than the Katana/Regens we were proposing. But that assumed you could reliably hit Dark Regeneration right before dying, every time, and that's not going to happen. Regeneration has its own dangerous dance to perform, of course.

So pretty similar, and I consider my Katana/Dark to be near the top end for Scrapper survivability. Strengths and weaknesses vary, of course, making comparison a bit difficult. A survival-spec'd Dark Melee/Invulnerability would run circles around me against smashing/lethal enemies, for instance, or I would assume a Super Reflexes against heavy defense debuffers like +4x8 Incarnate Banished Pantheon.

Originally Posted by Scythus

The trident also looks rather nice. Furthermore, there's something to be said about the metal and wood staves' simplicity.

Originally Posted by Werner

Honestly, I DON'T know Regen inside and out any more. Other than an occasional fling for old time's sake, I haven't played my namesake Katana/Regen in years, and that was my ONLY Regen. I've never played Regen with Shadow Meld. I've never played Regen with Incarnate powers.

My most recent "experience" with it was in Mids' and spreadsheets and forum discussion maybe six months ago. A number of people on the Scrapper board were really down on it at the time, and I (and several others) really felt that it had a lot more top end potential than most seemed to think. So my initial salvo was a soft-capped near perma Hasten Regen that could spend the majority of time at the Incarnate soft cap, and the community significantly improved it from there. I never built it, but at least several people adopted similar builds and reported great success. But even if that counts as experience, that was at the very top end, no expense spared, all Incarnate powers on the table. That's perhaps most relevant to what the Scrapper board tends to be interested in, but at best peripherally related to balance discussions and whether the set should be left alone, modified neutrally, or buffed.

And I'm not strictly saying that they should leave the set alone. As a dev, that's probably what I'd do, or perhaps add some regeneration and recharge debuff resistance. I probably wouldn't touch Instant Healing. But as a player, and given my current temperament, I'd personally like to see Instant Healing turned into a toggle, acknowledging that it would have to pay for that in other ways.

Originally Posted by Agent White

Yeah pretty much, but like I said, no one makes a product hoping to be second best. Any new MMO is going to aim for being 'the best', which means knocking the 900 lbs gorilla off his perch. You're right though, if it ever happens it's because WoW just crumples up on its own and not because any particular game strikes lightning like it did.

Originally Posted by Johnny_Butane

Yet nobody complained about the climax of Dark Astoria. Or SSA1p7.

Those missions existing in no way took away from all of the missions where the enemy are the original Knives or Malta or just thugs with SMGs. Nobody twisted your arm and forced your Kat/WP to fight Mot, nor should the game force someone else's flying brick to fight blue cowboys and ninjas by virtue of the fact that that there were no alternatives to that provided in the content and that stuff like Mot and Ruluwade are just now starting to appear in game. As long as you provide enough content for both extremes, cosmic and street level, there is absolutely no problem with having both in the same game. And even when you have a situation like we do already, with someone being able to solo Kraken or Kronos, that doesn't affect you putting together a SO'd team to do the same.

But none of that has anything to do with the fact that just because a character has guns, they're not allowed to know martial arts in this game. And because someone has Invulnerability, they're not allowed to be able to fire a magic blast. That was true at least until i24. Do people now see my point? Regardless, as long as the developers continue on the same path they have been, I'm happy. I think they could and should further that path by continuing to create more power pools and more epic pools and making the existing ones deeper. I'm also for softening the restrictions on the existing ones such as making them available earlier in a character's life (Ask yourself: really, why does a Scrapper need to wait until their 40's for Laser Beam Eyes? I mean come on) and perhaps even dropping some of the sillier prerequisites like needing Kick/Punch even if you just want Tough+Weave.




Sir, you win the Reading Comprehension Award for today. +1 gold star.


.

Originally Posted by Golden Girl

But it does still follow some comicbook rules - like characters as AVs need a team to take them down, but can be soloed when they show up as EBs

Originally Posted by Xenophage

okay so I will respond to a few things I have read here:

Brand X: so what you are saying basically "just buy another slot its not there fault you wanted to play with your friends when they changed servers if you wanted to keep all those extra slots you just need to make a whole new group of friends and find a whole new SG and start from the bottom all over again" ... nice.

Fact is while a one time free reallocation of unused global slots would be cool I don't expect it but some sort of option that at a per slot level cost less (so even if you have to buy in bulk like 3 slots moves at a time but over all comes to say 100pts less a slot) would make paragon money cause some of us don't only look at over all cost some of us also look at value "how much am i getting for my points?" and giving us options on ways to accomplish what we want can really only make them money.

then of course there was my idea for VIPs getting an option each month free server transfer or new character slot. Now I know again you'd rather just see me pay for a character slot then get a choice. Thing is a Transfer token on the store costs nearly twice as much as a character slot so by granting VIP players a choice to choose an extra character slot or transfer token they have the potential (at least based on point cost and dollar value assigned to those points) to come out ahead if I (and others) choose that option.

Thing is unless its a technical reason why we can't move around our global slots there is no reason to NOT offer the option of either free or lower cost global slot moves (or offering the choice to VIPs). Cause I and a lot of other people would rather spend the majority of there points on stuff like costumes and new power sets and I for one have no issue taking that FREE monthly server transfer and moving a character off my current one to another server for a month or two and would rather do that then buy a global slot atm.

Sever mergers/ repopulating: this doesn't work cause the only servers that would be merged would be the lower population ones and I play on Virtue (one with a rather high population), so merging servers would only help some people not all. I am looking for a solution that will at least help all current players with Global slots trapped on a different server and an organized effort for large SGs on freedom and Virtue to help repopulate other servers isn't a good solution either, the problem would still exist. Each person would be primarily playing on one server run out of slots and want to have more slots.

Originally Posted by Dark One

Because those times are when he can fully concentrate along with the fact that he grew up trying not to do anything. When it comes to the rather...distracting...nature inherent in a physical relationship, along with the involuntary muscle actions, it's a lot harder to justify him being able to control than it is in day-to-day activities.

Go read Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex by Larry Niven.

Originally Posted by Dark One

From the physical standpoint, Superman/WW works a heckuva lot better than Superman/LL. Sorry, but I don't buy the mental gymnastics people try to use to justify how Kal and Lois could have anything approaching a physical relationship.

Don't feel bad for Lois. She's been getting sufficient lovin' from...some dude...in comics as of late.

Originally Posted by DarkGob

They're just not an interesting couple. I always liked Batman/Wonder Woman as shown on JL/U.

Originally Posted by Local_Man

Anybody who makes those kinds of rants/complaints about his place of employment publicly is unprofessional. I don't care how good/bad an artist he is. The most he should say is, "we had creative differences."

Originally Posted by Jack_NoMind

A PG13 or R rated animated film version would be pretty sweet. I don't mean, like, nonstop sex'n'violence, but like a good pulpy tarnished gold feel.

Originally Posted by Starsman

Ninjitsu (out of IO) is not extremely sturdy (mainly due to how many powrs are utility and not mitigation.)

Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU

It's okay if the power has a different name! Doms can get Caltrops and Thorntrops, which are basically the same; then there are all the "TT" powers that SoA get.

Rename the power "Footspikes"!

Originally Posted by Quinch

Hey, Green's Disease isn't something to joke about.

Originally Posted by Quinch

When paid-for-VIP powersets started coming out, I decided that, if my monthly vreem stipend wasn't enough to buy them, I'd cancel my subscription and never come back. This, fortunately, hasn't and doesn't look to be the case, and I generally come out a bit ahead each month anyway.

That said, while I've had time to accumulate the paid powersets as they came out, I can see how this would be an issue from the perspective of a new player. The projected message of being a Very Important Player is undercut by the fact that, at the start, their options are still limited. What if they want to create characters with various paid-for powersets? They'll either have to pay extra off the bat, or wait each month enough points to buy them and the prospect of that, if I were just coming to the game, would leave a pretty bitter taste in my mouth.

Originally Posted by Dark_Respite

Note: As a responsible adult, player, and forum poster, I would like to remind people that this thread does NOT condone the abuse of alcohol. Drink something else.

Every time someone does one of the following, take a drink:

1. Uses the term "slap in the face" with regard to the game itself or the devs
2. Quotes their veteran status as supporting evidence of being right ("I've been playing since...")
   **Take a second drink if they use the number of veteran badges as proof of this, since the vet badge system is no longer really applicable
3. Uses the term 'tankmage'
4. Quotes a lengthy post in its entirety only to then say "signed", "QFT", "me too", LOL, etc., or responds with anything less than a complete sentence.
   **Take one drink per picture if all they're quoting is images
5. Asserts that "the majority of players" or "the entire playerbase" agrees with their position
6. Ends any single line post with an emoticon.
7. Demands a response from the devs
   **Take a second drink if they demand compensation
   **Take a third drink if the total value of said compensation could actually be calculated as less than fifty cents
8. Criticizes anything in the game while stating that they have in fact never done it
   **Take a second drink if they do that in the same post as the initial criticism
9. Attempts to pigeonhole any Marvel, DC, or mainstream comic character as a COH archetype
   **Take a second drink if the attempt to pigeonhole is actually a complaint that we can't make said character
10. Asks "is this character a copyright violation?" or "Is this offensive?"
11. Insists that they are allowed freedom of speech on a privately owned forum
12. Doesn't actually ragequit before posting about it
    **Take an additional drink each time they continue to post in said ragequit thread
    **Take an additional drink for each "can I have your stuff" post in said ragequit thread
    **Everyone in the thread drinks if a redname posts "can I have your stuff" in said ragequit thread
13. Grouses about PvP
14. Complains about a powerset or combo that is 'unplayable', 'unbalanced', 'overpowered,' 'underpowered', 'nerfed', or other indication that the devs can't do math when calculating powersets
    **Take a second drink when someone with mathematical ability proves the poster wrong
15. Posts a doom thread right after the quarterly financial announcement from NCsoft
16. Posts about how an issue loaded with content, QoL changes, and new powersets has "ruined the game"
17. Posts only to state "FPARN"
18. Invokes Hitler, fascism, elitism, etc.
19. Posts "suggestions" (read: demands) in a section other than "Suggestions"
    **Drink a second time if someone subsequently posts a list with links to all other threads on the same topic
    **Drink a third time if any or all of the other threads were started by the same person
20. Posts complaining that an event is deliberately being scheduled to inconvenience/exclude them
    **Take another drink for complaints that a contest excludes them despite legalities over which the mods have no control
21. Asks for a name purge
    **Insists the reason for the purge is "there are no good names left"

*****

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

Originally Posted by Starsman

The only drastic change a Ninjitsu for scrappers would need, IMO, is Caltrops due to Epic redundancy.

The Placate and -Perception debuffs can work for scrappers, and Hide can use a similar mechanic to what is seen in AE: a damage buff that suppresses on attack, doing only the first attack from hide do bonus damage.

I think that one caltrops power can safely be swapped with a passive regen power.

Originally Posted by Adeon Hawkwood

Personally I've always felt that the best way to buff the buff-centric sets is to have the ally buff powers grant the owner an un-enhanceable auto-power simply for owning the ally buff. It doesn't need to be as powerful as the ally buff and the general strength could be adjusted up and down or even eliminated based on how much help the set needs. Cold Domination for example doesn't really need anything but similar powers in Thermal Sonic and FF probably could benefit form that.