Cognito

Folks, I wondered if playing Kheldians is fun? I rolled a WS and PB up to level 11/10, but I really just dont get them. They seem to have no character or flavour, and given they all have identical origins, I feel drained of all character or uniqueness when playing them.

Im beginnning to think the only real attraction of them is for playing the Kheldian storylines.

Does it get better?

Hmmm if someone was sensible they would organise a Tuesday team and a Wednesday team...

I would suggest waiting till issue 7 when we can have more cozzie options and powerset options but hey ho?

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AA cog i liked Astra.. kinda felt like raven from teen titans only male

plus i thought the powers sets and the origins were quite unique! You have the ability to feel and manifest peoples fears including your own right? thought that was cool! Well i hope you change your mind but if not hello to Force Commander and good bye to astraphobia

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Hehe thanks... well I thought the sets and concept were fantastic, I just found him a little too morose to play

I could potentially Keep Astra having him as a guest mysterious slot (not gonna delete him) if that would interest people - hey, hes a mysterious fellow

My problem is I usually dont get a feel of whether I like a charecter until mid teens or later. Hell, my 50 was originally designed as a silly joke character but I got to love her and her concept and ended taking her all the way.

Good point, and im still not free Monday evenings

Battleflag i have to thank you (and Im sure other will) for top work, and good ol benign dictatorship! thank!

May i confirm its ok to Swap Astra for Force Commander (troller --> defender, should up damage slightly, lower defence slightly but not make a whole hill of beans)?

Time of play? is there a decision? Personally I can only really make tuesdays (inflexible me), but go with concensus say I.

May i suggest if there is enough discrepency in time availability we split teams/strands/players into seperate times?

Well put me down for Crack Head, a thugs / poison mastermind. An alchemist from the middle ages with a uncanny mastery for creating all manner of chemicals. His face half blown off from one experiment, he continually wears a mask to hide his face.

In the modern era, his ability to magically conjure highly addictive substances has created a manicially army of street thugs who will blindingly follow his every whim in order to get their next fix...

Excellent! I cant play mondays or wednesdays! lol

Is it worth doing an Alpha team for (generally) mondays, and a Beta team for (generally) tuesdays?

Id REALLY like to do a regular session - Enjoyed Thursday loads, but mondays are a bit of a no-no.

Ive got two great concepts for a mastermind or brute, but they require the issue 7 sets (which shouldnt be more than a week away), so sign me up for either of these.

But as I said, time may be a problem. How about the split tuesday/monday thing? "Team Monday" "Team Tuesday"?

BTW Brittanic Justice is the freind I was talking about

I think with him, and the two others that means the Militia are up to 16 now.

And if its OK im changins Astra to Force Commander!

Id love to do this, but cant do Monday evenings im afraid *weeps quietly*...

Tuesday evening ftw!

From the recent RV event on Training room, I can swear by 3 slows in CE if you want to PvP. I had endless fun laughing at stalkers trying to backpedal from me as I slowly pummelled away with air superiority et al.

My change is to a Kinetics/Rad defender (with leadership pools eventually), which will actually mean a large damage output to everyone ( +45% aprox just with siphon power and assault, never mind speed boost, increased accuracy, and eventually fulcrum shift). If we are talking teams of 6+, probably going to be the same as a blaster in terms of total team damage...

My freind has a storm/dark 'fender who wants to join. Wont be such a buff as me, but freezing rain (-res) always helps.

Ill go by vote of course, but If everyone is happy Id like to change Astra to "Force Commander", a kin/rad defender.

Please let me know about this and my other def freind.

I wouldnt worry to much about damage - in large groups defenders running assault and buffing can up damage qouta signigicantly

OOh, and btw, I have a OL freind who would like to join the militia, any space for a storm/dark defender?

Folks, I wonder if I could change Militia member at this early stage? Astra is a great concept but I found him a little TOO dark and complex really?

Could I change to a defendery character? similar type of toon - support?

Well my logic is that the best power an ice tank can have is aid self. The more defence you have, not only is it harder to hit you, its easier to regenerate.

I was playing the Test room RV event with an ice/ice. I wont bother you with build, but I had all armours 3xSO, tough 3xSO, ice patch, and aid self. No weave (which would be my lvl 41 choice). I could usually stand an assault by up to 8 villians before they got bored and moved on. The minimum it took to take me down was 5 - which i think involved being mezzed by three dominators and getting spanked by 2 assassin strikes and follow up blows.

Could I get anyone else though - well i took down a fair few stalkers who were sillly enough to attack me - then laugh at them backpeddling at a snails pace and slipping over on an ice slick whilst I slowly plodded their health down. I got a few other squishies.

Well, thats all a bit arrogant I suppose. But Im actually a pretty bad PvPer, Im just saying it the combination of high defence, ice patch, and aid self makes you an incredibly hard target. And to back it up, I played on the villians side and I found Ice tanks murderous to take down. Granite is pretty hard but you can wean them down and perhaps end drain them (and they are never realy a threat being so slow), but Ice tanks were just murder. Even if you started to dent their health they could hibernate and you start from scratch. They are hard to escape and hard to slow, its very difficult end draining them - In fact the only ice tank I saw fall in the entire event was me (under heavy heavy bombardment). I would actually say they are too overpowered in PvP - Hibernate just recycles too fast.

Negotiator not needed for Atlas Medallion iirc, but its a nice badge to have, especially for some of the Militia!

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, and theres very little about it that makes teams want an empath over a kinetics or radiation defender, if anything.

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Surely teams shouldnt want any particular type of defender over another?

Given that levels 1-20 are characterised by teams screaming for empaths, and its not unheard of for non-empaths to get kicked, I hardly think its fair that empaths should be the preferred set at high levels. If anything, a slight reversal of fortunes seems equitable?. Not that I want this, I would just like all defender sets to be valued at all levels.

As I said, im not really a power player, its FUN ftw. However, a small component of not fun is not dying, and another small component is having endurance and not waiting around to recover

BTW ASTRA IS A MAN!!!!

The important badge is Spelunker as it so easily missed... the next one is around level 30 iirc. Spelunker badge is needed for the Atlas Medallion, which gives +5 END permenant.

Spelunker mission is available from lvl 10-14 (There are three contacts - one is Dr Trevor Seaborn, cant recall others). Its thus very easy to outlevel and miss, especially if you are in the hollows.

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Hasten? Cant see how that can help a "pure" tank. Taunt recharges plenty fast enough, I can only really see it helping with Hoarfrost and Hibernate, but with 3SO in these, they should be up enough for when needed. I can only see Hasten being really worth it if you a playing a more skranker build myself.

[/ QUOTE ]Hoarfrost, hibernate, aid self, your AoE attack (which you need both to take more aggro, and mobs to die quicker), ice patch (if you're /ice), and fireball (if you're */*/fire, it's good pullling and aggroing tool). Also, hasten allows you to slot for more end than rech, meaning that you're likely to stay fighting longer.

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Just my opinion but I would disagree.. for an ice/ice tank anyway:

If you cant grab 95% of aggro between chilling embrace and taunt, there is something wrong, so I cant see how a faster cycling attack cycle would aid "Tanking".

Ice Patch can be permenant with 1 SO Recharge, so little to be gained from hasten. I put two in, just so I have a bit of flexibility if i need to move, but thats overkill really.

Hoarfrost, Hibernate and Aid Self all benefit from hasten. But with 3 SO Recharge in each they cycle pretty fast.

If you are looking at "Pure" tanking, it is only these three powers that gain anything from hasten, and IMHO they recharge pretty well, and, again, hasten isnt always up even 3 slotted.

So, I would say that tough or weave is better for a "pure" tank than hasten.

I dont think faster cycling attacks mean anything to an ice tank with taunt to be honest. Aggro is usually 90%+, and I can acheive 100% in a good team (unless there are lots of flying / teleporting mobs) without using gauntlet at all.

Of course, it is usefull for upping your damage, and I suppose a faster cycling End drain from Energy absorbtion might add a degree of control.

As for no needing to slot for recharge, and slotting end? well, end can be a problem when hasten crashes, and you are using powers faster anyway... and with energy absorbtion I never find end a massive problem anyway.

Im not knocking hasten, I just think if you are purely looking at "tanking" i.e. aggro grabbing and surviving, its very low down on the list of priorities.

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Astarphobia:

She seems ok but the jury’s out until I can get to know her; she had to disappear for a while.


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Despite Astra's "feminine" quality of empathy, he is infact a man!

Avoid hollows please!. And a small request, can we make sure we get the spelunker badge (Im not a power player, but the extra endurance afforded by the Atlas badge does make game play more enjoyable ).

On reflection, I think I might find playing Astraphobia a bit to dark a character , as well as technically difficult . As often happens, you dont really get a feel for how much you like a character until level 10... Im a bit pessimistic about Astra

I prefer Rad/Elec

Rad primary basically works like this: In bad team you are "teh suck", in good team you are "teh uber". If you can live through the frustration of the first twenty levels of everyone killing the anchor, you will mature into something truly valuable. Radiation is, IMHO, potentially the most powerful defender set, but the whole team (not just you) has to know how to use it well, and that is not easy.

I chose elec secondary. Why? well partuialy to be different (so many rad/rad out there already), but also because I wasnt that attracted to the secondary effect of radation blast. Most players have enough accuracy to hit enemies without debuffs fairly well, and radiation primary will drop enemies defence significantly. IE with the primary debuff, everyone is hitting highly accurately, and so the additional defence debuff of radiation attacks is rather pointless.

And elec is getting a buff in issue 7 (yeah! scaling end drain )

I like weave personally... the more defence you can cram in, the proprortionally more effective your Aid Self can be (which is the priority).

If you have Aid Self, weave actually is better than tough.

Hasten? Cant see how that can help a "pure" tank. Taunt recharges plenty fast enough, I can only really see it helping with Hoarfrost and Hibernate, but with 3SO in these, they should be up enough for when needed. I can only see Hasten being really worth it if you a playing a more skranker build myself.