Doctor_Gemini

which means you need a goal again...

Ma is responsible for alla you being here, so show some respect!

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This thread made me dust off my defenders last night and remind myself why I don't play them solo, and where I think their problems lie.

Most of them are in their teens, and in every fight they pop a major artery and bleed end all over the place. I always slot for end reduction and accuracy, and even my other toons with toggles can usually go from spawn to spawn without needing to take a knee.

Not defenders. They can do 2 spawns, on rare occasions 3, but throwing out twice as many attacks, and constantly using their secondaries as well, pretty much makes them need rest far more than rest recharges.

My controllers, on the other hand, usually only need their secondaries in a major fight, if I'm up against bosses or aggro more than one mob. Their AOE uses alot of end but I rarely need it more than once in a fight. So, my controllers almost never use Rest.

I should say that I don't sprint from mob to mob solo, I just walk, usually pausing to look over the situation before going in, so my toons always get some down time between fights, but its not enough to make up for the end use defenders require.

My post-stamina defenders are more manageble end-wise, but, the damage the enemies do, and the number of enemies with powerful ranged attacks, increases. As does the number of hits it takes the defender to kill one of them. I may be able to manage end without alot of down time, but, getting through a fight without my health being well in the red requires a great deal of luck.

The debuffs don't seem to do much of anything. They seem more like a placebo than having any real world effect. I guess without them, I'd be hit 100% of the time instead of 50%, or one shotted by a minion. Yes, that's an exaggeration, but, it's what is going through my mind I'm still beaten within an inch of my life despite stacking on -acc or -dmg.

A controller, on the other hand, avoids melee attacks, and while they still have to deal with ranged, its easy to slot hold duration to the point of being able to keep an entire mob held. The controller will take some hits initially, but, is still in minimal danger while taking his time to kill the mob.

Personally, I accept that a defender is a team AT and just end up not playing my defenders solo. Yes, I CAN solo them, I just don't find it fun to sit and stare at the computer screen with nothing going on at all for a few minutes (well, it seems like a few minutes) every couple of fights. I think its safe to say that most people don't enjoy soloing them.

The difference between defenders and controllers on teams has been argued as much as it can be in this thread. I personally think whether or not a controller or a defender adds more to a team depends entirely on the makeup of the team and the difficulty the team is playing at.

I do think that, unlike every other AT, the defender brings nothing unique to a team and has an inherent that sees very little use compared to that every other AT gets.

Perhaps something along the lines of their inherent increasing their own regeneration and recovery as they lose health and endurance. Although whether that would do them any good on teams post-stamina I haven't played higher level defenders on teasm to know.

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ok, all I asked for was a open debate/discussion. Not some childish banter. This thread was opened simply to give everyone an opportunity to state their viewpoint on AE. Not to be insulting or to exhibit (again) childish behavior. Please keep the comments to the thread topic and leave the immaturity to yourselves.

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Childish behavior begets childish behavior. When there are about 50,000 threads on this very subject in this forum, starting a new one is not a "mature" decision.

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Don't forget that it should not be used by anyone who might impregnate said women.

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I thought that was already the case

As far as I know, you can't. The best you can do is choose a fairly linear map that makes it tough for the player to bypass any of the captives without stealth and make sure to put the captive that the boss triggers on further back on the map than the other two.

devs hate steampunks

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Do non damaging attacks like Twighlight Grasp or the temp extinguisher power make her submerge? Squirting her with a giant water hose seems to be fairly humane.

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Most heroes nowadays have been squirting her with a "water hose". That's why she usually cons yellow.....

The MA made Chuck Norris cry...

QR

I don't start teams because I don't want to be team leader. To me, the team's leader should lead (not tell everyone what to do, but also not just do nothing when everyone is running off doing their own thing instead of working together, even though that often leads to some hilarious face-planting by other team members). not just be an invitation sender.

I "lead" at my job and I've run a tabletop FRPG for the last 30 years, so when I play CoH I just want to relax and, if I team, let someone else run the show.

My main was walking down the street in King's Row the other day and I heard a voice say "pssst....hey, hero." I turned to look and the AE building was leaning against a wall in the alley.

"I got what you need, man!", it told me, and held out some shiny, green tickets. I knew it was wrong, I'd always been told to stay off the tickets, but, I thought a few tickets couldn't hurt. I can just try them out and walk away.

I was wrong. My ticket habit started to consume my life. AE was always there, always pushing those tickets on me. Before I knew it, I would do anything to get more tickets. My friends tried to help me. My sidekick tried to keep me busy fighting crime with him. One day, though, while we were in Praetoria, I couldn;t find AE to get my ticket fix. I couldn't help myself, I ran off and left him. He was racing towards Anti-Matter and said "Hey! How'd he turn purple??!"

That was the last I heard. I don't know if he ever made it out alive.

AE destroyed my life. I lost my base, my enhancements, and it changed my global name. Now I'm back in King's Row, living on the grounds of this big industrial building...

Some of my fellow homeless want me to come to the sewers with them. They say it's warmer there. I think I'll go with them, though the guy wearing the stop sign kinda gives me the creeps...

I agree with the OP, AE is the worst thing that ever happened to this game.

Before AE, with my massive alt-itis, I was able to run sewer teams or street sweep in order to avoid the first sets of missions that I had run millions of times. Now, with AE, I'm forced to run story arcs that I've never seen before.

Before AE, I had to earn my inf by spending time I wanted to use running missions in WW buying and selling to build up my fortune. Now, with 600 or so tickets by 7th level from AE missions, I'm able to gamble on a bunch of bronze rolls and (so far) have a decent chance of getting something I can craft and sell for a few million. Where's the tedium in that? Making inf in the game should require you to do something you don't find fun!

The worst thing is, when I leave MA, all these dang people keep asking me to run missions with them. The other night I got invited to 3 different TFs!! What's wrong with these people? This morning I was in the Hollows and I saw about a dozen DIFFERENT PEOPLE!!!! I was even asked to run scanner missions this morning!!!

What's wrong with these people! Don't they know EVERYONE in the game only wants to play AE? What do they think they're doing outside the AE, asking for teams, and running regular missions?

Of course, I told them all they needed to get back to AE because we need more "AE is ruining the game" threads on the forums. Hopefully others will join me in herding these blasphemers back into AE so the evils of this satanic plot can continue to be trumpeted to the heavens!

Mine is easily soloable, story-based arc, though its meant for those under 10th level. It went back and forth between 4 and 5 stars before I just took it down and changed one of the missions.

It needs either high damage or to be an AOE. Otherwise its silly that a supposed super-speed attack sticks you in place longer than most powers you have at the time you can get it.

Although another possible solution is having the animation be a single punch if you miss. One of the major breaking points, to my mind at least, is that you're supposed to be so fast that you hit a guy 10 times faster, yet when you miss you're stuck there longer than most other attacks and being smacked around while you whiff away.

That doesn't make you feel like much of a speedster.

shhhhh

only those with an '04 reg date have been told about the new space zones....

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there's no excuse for dropping the ball on this one, people!

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Unless, of course, said toon is wearing a short skirt....

QR

That is pretty much the 'classic' roles for each AT. Just don't get fixated on roles in a team. Some of the most fun teams I've played on has been with characters taking on non-traditional roles. Fun either because they were absolutely devastating or because things were so crazy you could hardly play for laughing so hard.

I would be surprised if we see any significant story content before Going Rogue. Likely most of their story talent is fully engaged in that.

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He's not saying it is. Unfortunately, with so many people working the market, the hyperinflation has made difficult for casual players, who would rather play, get the items that they could (previous to the AE) get rather easily.

Yes, you can make money on the market. But you can't deny that the AE phenomenon has inflated the market pretty dramatically.

Example: Somebody on one of my global channels reported last night that the market activity showed a Boresight common salvage sold for 80 million influence. Rich farmers are pricing regular people out of the market.

--NT

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On the other hand, this morning, I put in a bid for Scientific Law for 1,000 inf, they were selling for around 10,000 and had about 5 times the demand than supply. In the time it took me to jetpack from WW to my base portal in KR I had bought 10 of them.

I had a number of bids at 50 each for 10 pieces of various common salvage that was selling in the thousands at the time, with no real demand compared to supply, and every time I'd get back to base I'd get a message I bought something.

The point is, except perhaps on the weekend, it doesn't even take the patience to wait 25 hours, it just takes the patience to wait a few minutes, or maybe put in a bid and go run one mission, to get a more reasonable price.

So, rich farmers are not the issue, the lack of a tutorial on market common sense is.

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For example, the fact that three yellow minions sucks up 38%-50% of my end bar on my FF/Nrg seems problematic, while my time to kill is longer than other ATs, its not terribly longer, but my downtime is higher because I have end issues and I also get placed in more danger because I can run out of end mid-fght more easily than other ATs I have played. To be specific, when I start fighting with my FF/Nrg, the first spawn is always cake, the 2nd one is normally a non-issue, the third one can get dangerous, as by the end of the fight I am pretty much guaranteed to be sucking wind and trying not to toggle drop. 80 seconds into my playing, three spawns are dead, but I have no endurance to continue. Take a knee, move on, 80 more seconds have passed, and I now have a minute before Rest recharges. I have tried using blue inspires, but they are not enough to keep up a pace I find fun. I chose the FF/Nrg as a solo trial toon on purpose to see how bad it could get, and it was fine until the late 20s (I do not solo exclusively with her, but always make sure to spend a lot of time soloing).

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This is exactly why my first toon is still 22nd level. Oddly enough, when I left the game for 2 years back in Issue 4, he was the highest at L18 and the only one I enjoyed playing at the end. When I came back he was the most tedious to play. It seemed like his abilities were not close to what they were back then. I don't know if that's just perception, if the bad guys were buffed, or if buffs were nerfed.

I don't want to see Defenders get more damage. I would rather they get something that fits in with being Defenders. All the other heroside ATs are great at one thing and weak at another (or have a unique ability such as Controllers controls). I think that is why Defenders are lacking, they are weak at one thing and ok at another, but they don't have a strength all their own.

Of course, get multiple defenders together to stack their buffs/debuffs and they will outdo Controllers anyday. So the problem is not defenders but the lone defender, whether soloing or the only one on a team.

To my mind, increasing the effect of a Defender's buffs/debuffs, while reducing their cumulative effect would be the way to go.

For example, a Defenders FF Dispersion Bubble could give me and unbuffed allies 15% defense, while only adding 10% to those who already have buffs.

It would also create a noticeable difference between a defender's dispersion bubble and a controllers, just like there is a noticeable difference between scrapper damage and tanker damage with the same power sets.

Now, despite the numbers used in the example, I'm not advocating a 50% increase in defender buffs/debuffs, nor that they should be double what a Controller gets. I'm not enough of a numbers guy to figure out how much of an increase would remain balanced and give defenders the feel of having an area of strength even when alone.

*Edited due to misstating my defender was "hardest to play" when I actually meant "most tedious to play".

They're not invulnerable, heroes have gotten together and taken down those ships before.

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I'm just kind of curious why they're so determined to attack Paragon City and the Rogue Isles. Same for all the other "world conquest" types. What makes this place the focal point for everything they do? Why haven't they conquered the REST of the world yet?

You'd think after getting their butts kicked over and over again in one location, they'd shift their focus and stomp the rest of the world flat, and then just bomb PC and RI from orbit.

Or maybe they're just insane. They do fit the definition of it. Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results...

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They do it because heroes and villains are defeatable, citizens are invulnerable (just look at what happens when you turn Lost back into citizens).

They can only get XP running the Paragon City or Rogue Island farms....

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Basically, if it's just an opinion, frame it as such. Don't expect other people to be mind readers. Seems to me the problem isn't their grasp, it's your delivery.

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Can you prove he expected other people to be mind readers??!! If it's just your opinion that he did, then you should have said so in that sentence!

Or maybe, instead, people could realize that no one without a red name is some Paragon Studios insider with access to info no one else has, therefore when they spout "facts" that are not available to everyone they are stating opinion.

I don't know, doesn't seem to me that requires much mind reading, just a modicum of intelligence. But, that's just my opinion.

And Cavatina, if we can't state an opinion without factual evidence on a game forum, then there won't be much posting here, will there? There is a great difference between claiming cancer is a myth, which can be proven wrong, and stating that CoH's subscribers are declining, which cannot.

Oh, and just as a disclaimer here, I think all of the OPs opinions are wrong. It's the "you need to put 'in your opinion' in every sentence" crowd that rankles me.

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This month we're going to get more information. "When" this month hasn't been specified.

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Nor did they supply a picture so we could see which month the dev was pointing to on the calendar when he said that....

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Actually, the picture is right here.

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ookkkayyyy...

I don't think I could get most of my observations about what was going on in that clip past the word filters....

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This month we're going to get more information. "When" this month hasn't been specified.

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Nor did they supply a picture so we could see which month the dev was pointing to on the calendar when he said that....