ClawsandEffect

Truth.

If you're going to hoverblast you want one of two things:

A) Go Devices so you get Web Grenade

-or-

B) Take Air Superiority

Reasoning:

There are enough flying enemies in the game that hoverblasting will not always keep you out of melee range of everything. So, you need something with -fly to get the flyers away from you. My Sonic/Devices has both....I just like smacking stuff outta my face, even though I could just use my webnade. Also, it's nice to have a back up plan in case one misses.

Eh, your expenditure is reasonable for what you ended up with. Shield is a notoriously expensive set to build.

Also, there isn't really a set spelling for "respec" or any variation of it, because it isn't a real word. There is no spell-checker on earth that will accept any variation of it as being spelled correctly, so spell it however you want. The way you spelled it there is the way I usually spell it too.

Ah, didn't realize Mid's accounted for Containment. Still though, 600+ damage for a ST attack on a troller that is also a mag 4 hold is nothing to sneeze at.

Good advice here.

For me, when I take Stamina depends entirely on what powerset I'm playing. If there are powers I want before 20 I'll try to work fitness around them to get Stamina at 20. If that's not possible, I'll take it by 24.

This is how I work too. If I really don't want a team I set the auto-reject. If my name just says I'm not looking for a team, go ahead and send me a tell, the worst I can say is no.

Well, the worst I can say is a lot ruder than that, but if your tell is polite, then the worst you'll get is "no thanks".

I was looking at it combined with the sheer amount of to-hit debuff a dark/dark blaster would be throwing around. When stuff isn't hitting you very often the ability to heal yourself becomes VERY potent. Look at the performance of an SR scrapper with Siphon Life or Aid Self to see what I mean.

On a Fire/Fire, I'd agree that a healing power wouldn't be especially overpowered, because it simply wouldn't be enough to overcome the amount of incoming damage. But Dark/Dark? That's a lot of mitigation, especially if they leave the Tentacles+Dark Pit combo in the primary.

I agree with an end cost reduction if converted into a +Regen power. Even a +Regen version of DR would probably be borderline overpowered, but no more so than Drain Psyche would be if combined with Dark Blast, so I see no reason not to do it.

I used to be very good at surviving against a number of opponents on my claws/regen scrapper. I didn't get very many kills, but it was damn hard to kill me. It was a little different against a team that was used to working together. Very few solo players could take on a dedicated PvP team and hold their own, in fact I can count on one hand the number of times I've seen someone do it for any length of time. I was never that good, but I could take on a group of disorganized people in a zone and survive for quite a while. Mind you, they always got me eventually, but I made them work for it.

That changed with I13 PvP changes.

Now, against one opponent without much in the way of debuffs I'm nearly impossible to kill, but as soon as more players start showing up my chances of surviving drop dramatically, no matter what they're playing.

Skill is still a factor, but it's not as critical a factor as it used to be.

(For the record, I am aware that I'm not the greatest PvPer, but I do make a claim to a modest amount of skill)

I like it....with one exception: Dark Regeneration.

Even on a 2 minute timer a heal that potent would be too much for blasters to get. Change it to function more like Drain Psyche minus the recovery bonus and add a significant to-hit debuff to it and you've got a winner.

I still highly doubt blasters will ever get a real self healing power outside of Aid Self or Epic pool powers. And with as awesome as Dark Regeneration is on scrappers, asking for it on a blaster is asking WAY too much in my opinion.

I'm looking at tendencies for blaster sets on the "no self heal" thing. There isn't an existing blaster set that has a true self heal, which I presume is intentional. I'm operating on the theory that if blasters were going to be given a heal power in a primary or secondary we would have gotten one by now.

Drain Psyche doesn't really count as a self heal, since using it right before you die will almost never prevent you from dying. Life Drain will, and it's on a short enough recharge that it can be made part of a normal attack chain.

I will be VERY surprised if Dark Blast gets ported to blasters with the self heal intact.

I'm looking at Tenebrous Tentacles along with Bill's proposed secondary as to why it may be a problem.

Siren's Song is an AoE sleep power. Which means the second you hit that mob with an AoE they all wake up and start shooting you. Screech is a single target stun.

Tenebrous Tentacles is an AoE immobilize. Dark Pit is an AoE stun. As any Fire Control player can tell you: AoE immobilize + AoE stun = AoE hold. The stun prevents them from acting, the immobilize prevents them from moving, which is exactly the same thing a hold does. Add in Oppressive Gloom from Bill's secondary proposal and you now have an AoE Stun + Immobilize combo that can affect bosses. That will probably be deemed overpowered for a blaster to have.

There is no blaster primary/secondary combo that has the potential for that much hard control. Once again, I'm guessing that is probably by design.

A self heal that doubles as an attack on a short recharge timer, AoE hard control that can affect bosses, and to-hit debuff on nearly every power is just a little overpowered when considered on an AT with the damage output that blasters have.

I strongly suspect that those considerations are exactly why we don't have Dark Blast for blasters already.

So in other words, you want to make PvP physically impossible for people who lack the hand-eye coordination and reflexes to play FPS games?

As it is now, hand-eye coordination isn't even a factor in your PvP performance becaue the game targets for you. And anyone that can click a mouse can attack someone successfully.

It wouldn't even be CoH PvP, it would be a completely different game that PvE players would be even LESS prepared to learn, because NOTHING would have any parallel between PvP and PvE.

Sure, lets make the PvP learning curve even steeper than it is already, that'll be sure to draw more players in.

There's a big problem with that.

The way the game engine appears to work. Currently the only powers that function without targeting are PBAoEs and Location AoE powers.

If you wanted to remove targeting fom PvP, you would have to put in an entirely seperate code for how powers themselves actually function.

As it is now, the effects of the powers might be different than in PvE, but they still WORK the same. You target something and fire your power, the computer then calculates your to-hit chance based on a number of variables, and you either hit or you don't. That's how it works in PvE, and that's how it works in PvP. It is one of the ONLY things between the two that remains constant.

That would make defense based powersets COMPLETELY useless, as opposed to the mostly useless they are now. If there is no to-hit roll made, there is nothing for defense to do, basically causing Super Reflexes, Shields, Ice Armor, Energy Aura, half of Willpower, most of Stone Armor, and part of Invulnerability to literally no longer exist in PvP.

Changing something THAT integral to how the game actually works would not be a solution to the PvP problem. The biggest complaint about PvP as it is now is that powers don't work the same as in PvE. Imagine how upset people would be if TARGETING didn't even work the same.

Fair enough.

I just don't like arguments against me being based on things I didn't actually say or mean to imply, that's all.

Still funny that the whole thing started from something I said as a joke. I was referencing the movie "Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back", in which there is a lightsaber battle and Chris Rock remarks that "George Lucas gonna sue somebody!"

Also back on topic: I still think the set outlined in the OP would be brokenly overpowered, potential lawsuit notwithstanding.

Well, a lot of people are taking breaks until the new issue and Going Rogue come out, and others are in i17's closed beta checking it out. I don't believe the game's population has dropped that much, if at all.

Help channel is accessed with "hc" now if I recall correctly. I'm not certain on that though, so someone else will have to confirm for you. I don't use that channel, so I'm going by memory of someone else's post from a while back.

So you're saying you want to slot nothing but purples into every power your characters have? Or slot as many Steadfast Res/Def or Gladiator's Armor Res/Def enhancements as you can fit? Or as many LotGs as you want? A Numina's and Miracle unique in every heal power? (hint: the word unique is there for a reason)

We can't do any of those things for a valid reason. It's already possible to get insane performance levels out of your characters with the limits we have. If this idea were implemented things would get ridiculous quickly.