Doc_Reverend

The main thing I'll miss is the Arena. My SG has had it's annual Golden Age Festival there for the past six years and it's always been a lot of fine. Good memories there. It was easy to set up, low level characters could get there easily, and it wasn't too far from the trains, and since it's Galaxy, mostly had the zone to running the event.

Guess we'll have to move it to Talos or King's Row or something.

Okay. Fiddling with ideas. I'd taken WP on the AV because I figured the extra regen and HP would help it be sturdier, but maybe Inv would be better suited? Against a full group, would Invincibility's +toHit help?

Something I noticed while fighting the AV was that it'd often fall back into doing the animation of Heightened Senses even while fighting. Sometimes this would even be in the middle of an attack, like Shadow Maul. It'd start doing the attack, I'd hear the sounds, but the AV would start looking about all confused. Also, it didn't seem that Rise to the Challenge's -toHit debuff aura was kicking in, or at least, it wasn't affecting me. I wasn't seeing the debuff icon. Is there a limit on how many toggles an AV can have active or something?

I've changed a secondary AV meant to be relatively weak from Robotics (just Pulse Rifle Blast, Pulse Rifle Burst, and Photon Grenade)/Dark Armor (with Dark Embrace, Murky Cloud and Dark Regeneration) to Robotics/Dark Miasma. Part of this is because I noticed the laser rifle kept vanishing between attacks. The AV's hands would still be in place to hold it, but I couldn't see it. I'm keeping the laser rifle for reasons of story and concept.

The main enemies in this arc are Council and a grouping of the Nictus involved enemies (Galaxies, Void Hunters, and Nictus). Council are, well, Council. Not much I can do to help them. I'm experimenting with adding a line of customs to the Nictus group pretty much to serve as buffers/debuffers and explaining them as a new experimental line of Galaxy troopers using both Kheldian and Nictus shard implants.

At the minion level, I'm thinking either rad blast/energy manip (with Aim, Build Up, and Power Boost) or rad blast/mental manipulation (with Aim, Concentration and Drain Psyche). The AI in AE seems to use powers like Aim and Build Up without much thought, just firing them off the moment they're available, rather than, say, when there's an actual target in sight. LT level maybe dark or rad blast and empathy (with Fortitude) or pain domination (with World of Pain). Might go dark melee on them and set the AI to ranged and remove the ranged attack, since I've heard that doing that makes the AI a lot more likely to use their support powers. Since I've combined all the Galaxies, Void Hunters, and Nictus into one group it's a little boss heavy (six total, with the Nictus supplying four), I think I can afford to make the boss a bit nastier since it'll be spawning more rarely. Maybe dark blast/radiation emission or rad blast/dark miasma (and include Tar Patch and some of the other debuffs), since it's very unlikely you'll ever face more than one, while the auto-hit nature of the attacks will help.

Thinking back on the test, there is one detail I overlooked. I was running this at +0. My tank was 50+1 and IO'd to have rather respectable energy/negative energy defenses (about 36% against a single opponent in melee). A level 50 AV using dark attacks against a level 51 player would have a base toHit of 40%, and with my defense of 36%, it'd have 5%. This increases to 7.5% after you apply the 1.5 accuracy modifier all AVs get... which is exactly the number I was seeing. Maybe I should try to persuade my team to run this in +1 or +2. That should help.

The only other concern is unavoidable. Judgement powers tend to do a real number on your plans for seeding the enemy ranks with buffers and debuffers, but there's nothing I can do about that except run this at level 44, and I don't really want to do that. Might have to, given how overpowered high level, IO'd and incarnated out players can get, and not everyone on my team is as tricked out.

I need some advice here. I run and write for a group that's mainly high level, so you see a lot of 50s and 50+1s and IO sets. The problem I've been having is that my enemies seem to be made of cardboard and have difficulty threatening my team, and I want these things to be taken seriously.

I was testing some new AVs for an arc I'm working on. The one that matters here is Dark Melee with everything but Midnight Grasp and Willpower with everything but the self-rez. I'd intended this guy to be an endboss and major enemy. So I take my inv/energy tank in to my testing map to test it as an AV.

And it's hardly a threat to me. I pull up the combat numbers and I see why. It's got about a 7% chance of hitting me. I'm standing there doing nothing, and it's whiffing away trying desperately to hit me without success. While on one hand I'm proud of my ability to tank there, it is frustrating as I'd intended for this guy to be a big bad in a story I'm telling.

Anyone have any suggestions for how to shore up enemies like this? My team has this nasty habit of steamrolling enemies.

Where did you find this issue? I can't find mention of it anywhere but here.

I play an elec/earth dominator, and I'm trying to decide on which Interface power to take. I've been looking at Gravitic's -recovery debuff and thinking it might help improve my drains even more. How good is Gravitic and the -recovery debuff on elec control?

I have to agree with the Countess Crey one. I actually felt bad for her at the end, and could see what she'd been trying to do. She'd genuinely believed she was trying to save the world... and got lost along the way.

I admit that part of my fondness for that arc is how so, so many people use Crey Corp science experiments as the go-to for Science origins. Crey sometimes seems to be the greatest single supplier of superheroes in Paragon City. Part of me wonders if that wasn't their intention all along. "They'll hate me for it, but if that's what it takes to save the world... I can live with that."

The name Sunstorm is banned according to the AE Editor. Sunstorm, y'know, the Kheldian contact? I checked, too. The words Sun and Storm are fine, but Sunstorm is not. Moonfire and Shadowstar work fine. Also, the word Scorpion is still banned.

I'd like the ability to create Monster class enemies in AE. Either as normal-sized enemies of the Monster class, or Monster sized ones using the humanoid rig (just ginormous). The reason for the former is that AVs in AE are often not tough enough against a high level team. They get just steam rolled by the team unless you buff them up with a heavy defensive set like Willpower or Regen or Invulnerability. Ones with, say, Dominator sets just don't present a real threat before they get crushed by the controllers and the blasters and scrappers tear them apart.

As for the latter... hey, I want to make giant enemies in AE too.

I really enjoyed the Keyes. It requires more teamwork and communication, but it's frantic and fun and felt like more of the good kind of challenge without the squishy punishment of the Lambda.

Just thinking with the 20-26ish range of First Ward (I rewatched the chat. Black Scorpion said it's 20-25/26ish), that's about the same as Imperial City and Neutropolis. Outside of Nova Praetoria, most of the zones cover about a five level stretch. It means, for one thing, you've got a lot less of a chance of blundering into an outdoor mob that's seven levels above you.

There's actually a big plus to this system as it's set up: returning friends. I've got several friends who because of various financial or other similar reasons can't maintain a regular CoH account. With the Premium version, especially as in many cases they've already bought Going Rogue and other packs, they can still get in the game and play and stuff, at least to some extent (how the whole system works will probably be explained in more detail in coming weeks).

I've got a few people I'm seriously hoping show back up because of this.

Doom

or maybe DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM

I'd hope they arn't that stupid. I don't think they are.

Also, I don't see a crushing tidal wave of dumb cresting over the war walls as we scream in terror at the oncoming AOLspeak tsunami. We have griefers now. Who pay $15 a month to annoy us. Think they're going to go away on the new servers? No, they'll follow you and now be elitist obnoxious idiots. Not worth the trouble of moving. What do you gain by moving to the new server?

At the moment, whole lot of nothing.

I'm going to stay on Virtue, I think.

As for the rest... well, we treat the newcomers like decent human beings and not look down our noses at the grubby free accounts in their unwashed hands, RP with them, be polite... some might decide to upgrade. Act like elitist snobs, they'll ignore and troll you.

In today's special episode of DOOOOOOOM, we got to hear about the new planned VIP servers. While I'm sure this conjures images of a land of milk and proper punctuation, I remind myself that there are things this new paradise lack: the community, friends, teams and people I've played with for the past three years.

I think I'll stay on Virtue, and let the "exclusive" server do whatever. It has nothing to offer me. I don't think I'm the only one who feels this way, either.

I've found taking down Duray a LOT easier if you can neutralize his ability to fly and stay locked on him. My plants/storm controller hit him with Snow Storm, seriously limiting his mobility and then I hit him repeatedly with Roots and other immobilizing powers to get him to stand still long enough. He's very weak, but slippery. Avoiding the air strikes is fairly simple. I flew over a gap in the overpass. Never hit me.

One I had him grounded, I threw every hold I could. He can't teleport while held. A team with strong controllers and dominators should be able to lock him down long enough for the damagers to close in.

We have a Red Line? O.o Where does it go?

What do you suggest I slot it with?

I have a DP/Rad corruptor that I really enjoy playing and all, but I'd like to ask about EMP Pulse from the Rad set. I've never been a huge fan of nukes or powers that leave you heavily drained after using them (like Unstoppable). Is it worth taking or am I better off using my slots on something else?