EvilDeathBee

I'm a bit late to the party, but I'd like to say that he has a small point about the buffing sets. I really doubt that the devs will give Defenders an overall damage boost, because taken all together there is absolutely no need for it. The only sets that tend to lag behind the others for soloing are FF, Empathy, and (maybe) Sonic. I don't think a boost for those two sets to boost soloability would be out of the question, although I have no idea where the devs would apply them. As Catwhoorg said, the Ally-only buffs are Ally-only for a reason.

I guess they could add some damage to Force Bolt, and maybe a small damage buff to Recovery Aura or Regeneration Aura (to the caster only), but that's basically it as far as Defenders' needs seem to go.

I know a lot of people are holding out for a better inherent, and one which can be used solo, but the fact that many Defenders do so well without one makes improving Vigilance a very low priority.

The other thing I'd point out is that the OP's Defender is only level 22 or so and that Defenders' power levels often climb a very steep curve. I had a Dark Defender who had to level a mission twice at level 16 in order to finish it. Granted half the problem was the fact that it was Talshak's last mission and the map I got was the Oranbega map with the bloody portal room and its lovely Behemoths. Not my most heroic-feeling moment. Six levels later the same character easily tore through Faultline and every one of the Elite Bosses the devs stuck there. Poor Heracles couldn't manage a single hit. My SR scrapper managed the same thing against Terra, but took 10-12 more levels to reach that kind of ability. High-level Defenders are among the most powerful characters in the game, and being a slow starter doesn't really prove that the AT as a whole is underperforming.

Another point a few other people have addressed is that the OP's particular character, being a concept, is actually quite a bit weaker than an FF/Energy actually has to be. Several useful powers were skipped over in order to open up pools. The OP can build the character he likes, obviously, but if he skips a good power for concept reasons, I don't think he can really complain when another character turns out to be a better performer.

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No comments by the OP since the first page...I smell the bridge dweller....decently fed one at that.

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Actually, he didn't strike me as a troll, just a bit of a newbie. He seems to be severely underestimating how some of his secondary powers can be used to help keep his teammates alive. People basically pounced on him when he said he might as well not take his blasts because he wants to be "pure support".

Fortitude + Maneuvers + assorted to-hit debuffs in Dark Blast = Totally Awesome

I think the word "healer" is common enough in other MMOs that it's not too surprising it shows up whenever there is an influx of new people into the game.

If someone is chatting and mentions how he used to play a "brick" and teamed with a "healer" from his "guild", then it is probably nothing more than force of habit. No big deal. If they seem to know what their powers do and how to use them, that's all that matters.

There are people who seem to be captivated by the big green numbers, on the other hand, so they do fail to appreciate what Fulcrum Shift, Darkest Night, Fortitude and such are doing. I would probably wait before mocking them though. There's plenty about the game that I didn't know when I started, so I like to give people a fair chance.

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As I understood it there was no "on purpose" way to do it. It just happened as a fluke to villains loading into missions or what-not and accidentally ending up in places like Atlas Park. Not sure if I ever heard of heroes ending up in CoV but that might have happened a few times too.


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That happened to me one time for a brief moment. I logged into a hero and instead of appearing where I was supposed to be, I spawned in Mercy Island in the usual newbie spot. People were gathered around Kalinda and the Arbiter as they always are, and all their names appeared as orange.

After a second or two, everything disappeared and the zone loading screen came up, and I was back in the zone I was supposed to be in. There is apparently some code in place to stop you spawning in places you are not supposed to be, but for some reason it failed a few times and people had to petition to get out of the zones they were in.

I seem to recall that one of the villains stuck in Paragon was able to team with other players, enter missions and attack enemies, but was not able to target or be targetted for ally-only powers. Very weird bug.

I'm curious to see if the new flexibility will allow players to run solo missions exactly as they are now but without the boss at the end being downgraded to a lieutenant, the way missions were before the mission slider was introduced.

That was a tiny little thing that got lost in the shuffle back in the day. I have a lot of characters who can handle a boss fine with a few inspirations but don't do so well if the whole mission has been upped in difficulty.

Thanks guys. That's exactly the info I needed. I'm levelling an SR scrapper and it's good to know where the holes are.

Quick question.

I've seen a couple of mentions here and there about some mobs in the game having psionic attacks that are not positionally typed (i.e. range, AoE, melee). I was wondering if someone knew exactly which mobs this was referring to or if the information I was reading is simply obsolete. I know they've made one or two changes to damage types over the years.

Thanks in advance.

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Hey guys, I have a neat idea for buffing Propel in Gravity. We all know it's a long-activation attack with so-so damage.

Well, I've always thought that it's neat to pick up random things and throw them at the critters. What bothers me the most is that all the Objects deal the same damage. Are you telling a Chair does the same damage as a Car?!

I think it will be an even more fun power if some objects in Propel can deal more damage so it becomes a "gamble" power. What do you guys think? Is this possible? I would set it as: Weak, Heavy and Extreme damage. All the objects are classified under these 3 types in terms of Size. Of course most of the time you would only see Weak and Heavy damage but rarely you would see a big Truck that does Extreme damage.

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Not possible (unfortunately). The object that gets thrown is purely a graphical decision made by your game client. The server doesn't even know what got thrown and everybody on your team will see a different object.

Hehe. I dinged 50 on my first character just a few weeks ago. She was created in November of 2004.

Sooooo many alts.....

Ideally I'd like to see every mission accessible through Ouroboros. But the chief ones that are missing to my way of thinking are Mayhems and Safeguards, "minor" story arcs, and some of the ones scattered throughout the game with custom maps not seen anywhere else, such as the Hellion mission with the fiery red office map and the Devouring Earth mission where a whole building is covered with green mold.

And another thing:

Writing scholarly papers is as much an activity with a definite set of rules as this game's PvP.

Twixt's attempt to make a point about behaviour in this game seems ridiculous in light of the fact that his paper takes advantage of the social conventions that surround scholarly work (tenured professors are often allowed more leniency than other scholars, for example) instead of adhering to the activity's actual rules (such as the presence of a control group in the study).

But why concern ourselves with such "ineffable twaddle"? The important thing is that PvP is overrun by carebears.

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Twixt's methods are being looked at but that does not discount the points/goals of the paper and it is pretty clear (looks at some in the community) that Twixts obsevations were correct.

I'm loving this community of angels-who-do-no-wrong and would rather try to burn someone at the stake then admit the above to be true.

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I'm curious.

Does Twixt's paper have any meaning for you other than an assertion that PvP in this game is dominated by carebears?

Because most of the discussion in this thread has been based on the question of whether his paper was researched well enough to prove much of anything.

I mean: at a bare minimum he ought to have created a few different characters and showed how they ended up being treated differently based on how they played the game, one consistent with the "official" rules and the other more in line with the game's social conventions. Twixt didn't do that.

The result appears to be a very silly paper "proving" that PvP in this game is dominated by "carebears".

And the only thing you seem to be taking away from this whole discussion is that we're also proving that.

Wow.

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If you had read more carefully, you would have seen that he already did that and the detective told him to go talk to the Studio Manager.

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That shouldn't ever happen unless he's talking to the wrong detective. There are two detectives in each zone (in PI it's Selnum and McLord) and you're only able to talk to one of them. The other will give the brush-off by referring you to one of your other contacts.

Also note that once you get to Port Oakes, you'll be assigned a "broker" - either Mikey the Ear or Drea the Hook. Talk to whichever one appears on your map and he'll add the "Newspaper" to your contact list.

As soon as you have the newspaper, you'll always be able to get missions from it. Every few newspaper missions you do, you'll gain access to a new contact.

As Kitsune said, if you're in the Architect Entertainment centre, you may have started an arc, which you'll have to finish or quit before talking to any other contact.

Hope that helps.

I once reserved nine spots for people on a task force. *headdesk*

Counting ability for the win.

Everybody must get stoned.

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It was also meant for people to be able to level all the way to 50 using AE. So how would removing XP accomplish that?


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Well, they could always remove XP as a requirement for levelling....

I did a google search and found this in thirty seconds.

It's a superhero name generator. Enjoy.

This thread makes me think of George Harrison.

"Since effects are on
I want no one
to buff up me
It's not the same
the light's to blame
It's plain to see

So go away and leave me alone
Don't bubble me

I can't believe
they won't just leave
me on my own
It's just not right
where every fight
Those lights are on

I've got no time for you right now
Don't bubble me"

Lots of great ones in here!

I'm very fond of Evil Death Bee and Cosmic Ice Cube, my two highest characters, but I think my scrapper Twelfth Knight has gotten the most comments. CoX has quite a few Shakespeare fans, it seems.

I nabbed Attack Force for my Robotics mastermind, which is the one name I have that I was really surprised was available, and fans of Bob Dylan will know where I picked up the One Eyed Undertaker and the Goddess of Gloom. Those are two more I'm really fond of.

Oh yes. And I'd be remiss if I didn't mention Forbidden Donut.

Wait. Does this mean you don't get the power if you level inside the mission (thereby fighting Heracles at -1 level) or if hit level 25 and outlevel her whole arc?

The latter might be understandable, but it reads like they mean the former. That doesn't make any sense. With an 8-man team and loads of patrol XP to work off, it would be extremely easy to level within that or any other mission at that level.

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I would far rather see changes to the hero side contact system (akin to what we got with COV) than any changes to the AE.

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No argument there. I'd even be happy if they made missions spawn in zones that made sense. There's one arc where you're supposed to clear the Tsoo out of three Family bases in IP and two Warrior hideouts in Talos Island, and I invariably get sent from IP to King's Row to Dark Astoria to IP again and back to King's Row.

Probably the only thing they really should have done differently was to make the AE a separate zone, like Pocket D. Or place it inside Pocket D, for that matter.

The issue to me is less the fact that level 1 players have access to the AE in Atlas Park as it is that once a level 30 player has returned to Atlas to play in the AE, it's a long way back to Brickstown to visit one's contacts and resume playing the rest of the game (especially when you have a feeling that contact will send you all the way to somewhere like the Hollows). Might as well stay in the AE and just grab another mission there.

As it is, it isn't that hard to recruit a team if you do your recruiting in the AE, but it may not be as easy to get them to schlep all the way over to Crey's Folly. If the AE were a self-contained zone and had exits in Atlas, Skyway, IP, and Brickstown, it might not have impacted the rest of the game as severely as it did.

The only other thing that might have been a good idea in hindsight was to use the same sidekicking scheme as the rest of the game. Auto-sidekicking is more convenient, obviously, but it's possible that it's a little too convenient. Unlocking new content is supposed to be one of the chief rewards of levelling, and auto-sidekicking kind of takes away a bit of that shine.

I also think they are going to have to revisit salvage drops at some point. A couple of people have mentioned that the one undeniable effect of having the AE has been to drive up the prices of basic salvage. A few things like Luck Charms were always crazy, but Circuit Boards selling for 100K? Converting base salvage to invention salvage no doubt helped to drive up prices, too.

I would call the AE a net benefit to the the game, potentially a very large one, but it has had some little hiccups along the way.

I don't have a fire/kin.

I do have a level 16 fire/rad and a level 16 mind/kin. I have a rad mind, so if you assume that that cancels out the /rad and the /mind, what is left is a fire/kin.

Does that count?

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You remind me of that genus of comedian who think loud delivery and arm waving will transform their leaden jokes into gold.

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So, are you saying I'm Sam Kinison?

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I was thinking Bob Newhart.