Fuzun

Powerhelm the Hamidon is isn't insurmountable. He's been beaten on the Hero side and on the Villain side. Hero side did have a bit of an advance as there is a lot of old Hamidon raid experience to pull from. Villains (even long time Hero Hami raider) didn't have an experience to draw on. But Hami-Red has been beaten none the less.

And the reason for the hurege amount of AoE and KB and Mezz is to make is challenge. It's an answer to the complaint that Controllers and Defenders had to use for most of ther buffs during the hold Hamidon. Well now there are required. No buffs means a cascade raid wipe. And big new Phase Shift is still good to have. It helps my characters have a better chance of reaching cover successfuly.

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Just to add my two cents...I've had multiple instances when normal foes have hit my only character with PS through the phase...and I've taken screenshots of almost every one where it clearly state that my character "cannot hit nor be hit"... yet still dies. So the fact that an uber pile of goo can hit my char while PS'd is, well, rather unsurprising. Does it irritate me that a power does not work as stated? Sure. Do I really care that it doesn't work for one freakingly huge pile of goo? Maybe. But I'd settle for it working 100% against the regular mobs first. /end2cents

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That is something of an Illusion. The problem is the large amount of latency in a MM Online game. that includes you internet connection, but also all of event processong of the server and the effects that your game client is rendering. What is happening from the server point of view is this. You activate Phase Shift shift powers which send the event to the Game Sever. These is a bit of delay as that peskly light speed limit. While that's happening, the AI of NPCs has activated attacks to try to hit you, the To Hit determine is made that instant. Unfortunately for you it's a teeny bit before the server received the event for your Phase Shift activate (or it's during the PS activation time). This is all according to server's sense of timing. So youve been hit before your untouchable, but you just don't know it yet. The game server has to send the event to the game client in order to render the attack and damage animations, and your PS pwoer sfx. Usually it's ranged attacks with their slow damage effects rendering which reach you well after your PS effects are done. And it looks to you like you've been shot through your phase shift. Henace the illusion of PS not working.

As I hinted above, my Peaceberinger is "hit through Phase Shift" many times even through a PB's Phase Shift has 0 artivation time. The same sort of latency lag also allows you to joust with melee attacks. You Fly, SuperSpeed or Jump past a targer with an attack queue, and attack animations and lands with you some distance away. It's just somehting that we have to accept as part of the natre of an online and fast passed game.

Moo, I have found that when the devs are silent on an issue they are looking at it or working on it internall, but they haven't got anything close enough to done to talk about publicly. I would advise patience.

WillyBorn you assessment of Hamidon is flawed. Hamidon isn't a single entity threat like Galactus, or Thanos with the Infinity Gauntlet, or some Raid Boss Huge Dragon. Hamidon is more of massive invading force. Taken headon the invading force is unstoppable. What do you do? You don't take it headon.

Hamidon taken headon is unstoppable. Massive firepower. Massed amount of support fire. Well formed and overlapping defenses and support. Any force trying a headon rush is going to be annihilated. In order to defeat Hamidon, you have to treat him like an Invading Force. An army. Do beat an army you, do recon, gather intelligence, inventory your assets, form a plan of attack, pull the trigger, and hope for the best.

And Hamidon's so called breaking the rules? It doesn't matter. It's a decision the devs made so this new encounter isn't trivialized like the old Hamidon. Are PAs still useful in this new Hamidon raid? Heck ya. There are still useful versus Blue and Green mitos.

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Now let's say for [censored] and giggles we take all the common baddies in the game and reduce their health, damage, and XP by 80%. And then we increase the spawn sizes by a factor 5. So now, instead of facing spawns of 3-5, you're facing 15-25. Holy Full House Batman! Now you actually have something *worthy* to fight.

The tank/brute/scrapper plows thru them like a bulldozer, foes flying everywhere, constantly surrounding you, trying to overpower you, but they are but flies and you rip thru them like a hot knife thru butter. You're taking some damage here and there, but nothing you can't handle, and you're definitely working up a sweat cause you're just cycling thru powers non-stop. Mmmm quite satisfying.

The defender is momentarily daunted, but with their array of buffs and debuffs they too find it highly satisfying watching 2 dozen baddies bounce up and down on a tar patch, or flee from a chilling freezing rain, all the while being picked off one by one. Yes indeed, so very satisfying.

And can you just IMAGINE the sheer joy a team of 8 would be like this??? I get goose-pimply just thinking about it.

NOW you feel like a super hero.

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I would truely love to have that at times as well. And I think the devs would like to have something like but, but I beleive that design considerations prevent it. A lo of players on the CoV side of the house take a bit hit in framerate if too many MMs are on the team. You hope for the bestest systems to run your game, but you have to design for more modest systems. I think that the 3 minions = 1 Heroes is partially in reponse to that design contraint.

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I don't have a problem with Hami being more powerful than players. I have a problem with minions, LTs and bosses being more powerful than most players, with similar powers that are many times stronger than ours, with absolutely none of the limitations or restrictions that we players have. It's hard to feel super when the baddies are always more powerful than you are, can do things you can't do, can use your own powers better than you can, and can consistently smack you around with abilities you can't mitigate.

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The big problem w/ computer games in general, IHMO, is the limited ability of game AIs. To be a challenge to a human players foes need to be more power then the players. Or they need to cheat in some way.

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For those that have wondered, I am well...I’m just busy with my current games these days! I love my games, so I'm really trying to hold back here and not ask you all to come play them. *twitches*

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Heh. Heh. Heh. You sound like a certain hyper-kinetic squirrel-girl named Scarlett in this web comic.

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And who's to saw we aren't getting dual set of threatsnnew threasts to deal with. It's sounds like the 5th Column returning would fit nicely into the threat facing both Paragon City and the Rogue Isles. And the return of Rikti 1 and friends sounds likes mutual danger for the new moon coop zone. (Yeah I've placed my bet on what the new zone is.) And yeah enemies becomeing friends sounds like the new coop-zone.

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So yeah, I had a point I thought valid, but realized it wasn't when I reread your builds.

Damn well done, man! And I thought I was a build-[censored].

Don't quote me on this, but there's Kheldian IO thread stating you can get the first Knockback Protection IO at level 10. Long's it's not unique, you might actually be able to avoid Acrobatics.

(Nevermind, someone already listed em! Though the thing to note is the two Knockback IOs don't add much besides that. You'd lose a bit of resistance but gain a free power choice and some +recovery back.)

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Once crazy nutty thing your might think about is using Temperature Protection. Yeah granted it's passive powers and kind redundent, but it's also a Damage Resistance power. Any IO's slotted are always active. A KB Protection and Steadfast Protection's Unique +DEF are good choice to slot into it. And you would get the first set bonus.

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It was never really necessary to run all your armors, it was just 'more fun'. The players demanded it, and they got it, and it broke the system to a degree.

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I gonna have to disagree with you here. I'd say it becomes a requitement as you level up. Multiple damage types and positional attack are flying during battles. An SR Scrapper not running his 3 main toggles fight Nemesis is gonna get slaughtered . And Invuln Tanker had to run Unyiellding in the upper game or risk getting mezzed and getting a full or partial team wipe. And choosing then to use Unylelding was a gamble. Don't get close enough and your Invincility was virtually useless for Taunting, youre out of ranged to use the taunt in your attacks, and we only had the single target Taunt. And o h yeah, Rikti Mentlists. They stayed ranged. So had the choice be unmezz, rooted, and unable damage the Rikti. Or stand a very good chacne of geting slept/held before you could make it over ti him. And you have the 10+ second recoarge of Unyielding. On yeah, that was really fun. Not!

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I can't prove a negative so I have to say that its possible you can create a tree that will create balance, but I can say that quite a few smart folks I know (that are paid to do just that) have come up short trying to.

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Are you sure? Because I've analyzed this game, and a couple of others (with which I have admittedly much less experience) and I don't see the "fingerprints" that suggest its either been done to some degree, or even attempted and abandoned. If it was attempted in CoH, even if it was abandoned at an early stage, it should have left a signature in the powersets and archetypes, but the game lacks such a signature.

If there were a game for which this was tried then abandoned, I would expect that unless the entire abilities system was rewritten from scratch, there would be evidence in the form of design decisions that are apparently arbitrary in the current system, but would have been significant in an alternate balancing system.

Given how Defense and Regeneration were originally "balanced" at release, it seems clear that the mathematical tools to even attempt this, at least for melee archetypes, didn't even exist when the game was being originally designed. I'm not sure they even exist now: balance models for regeneration in particular seem to be lacking.

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Combat Stance were in the game to begin with to a degree. The non-stakcing armors from Tanker and Scrappers Defense sets. And to a lesser extend the End Cost for maintaining several toggles. It was OK conceptually and would have been fine for PvP.

But PvE evolved to the point where making those trade offs of which armor to use was a moot point. You HAD to run all of them or be near useless in the upper level game. NPC where though mezz attack like crazy. And they mixed in different attack types all of the time with 8 member team huge spawns.PvE for melee types did stink big time.

The idea of combat stances or the like could make PvP much more tactical. I get a lot of that when I'm PvP'ing with my Kheldians. You've got Combat Stances with the forms. High Damage/Mobility/no other defenses iwith Nova form, and Massive Defense/Less damage with Dwarf form. And a moxture of the two in Human Form. You;ve also got all sorts of utilities powers as well without having to did into the power pools. You can try to Stealth Stalker approach, the all out zerg, the knockdown dragout toe-to-toe faceoff. And you have the choice to chance stances/methods of on the fly. You can come in with Paper, if they respond with Scissors, you can counter with Rock. It's a interesting match when I face off a good PB or 'Shade. I never know if I'm gonna get Dwaf Right Hook, or get a face full of an Nova AoE, or both.

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<qr> now I have to get my TA defender past level 11.

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Now I have seen everything. TA Defenders becoming FoTM.

* boggle

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Do the attacks from hami / the mitos still ignore defense?

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Yes. Defense is of zero importance.
The only things that help your survival are Toxic Resist, EoEs, Mez Protection, and HP.

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Where would that leave my FF defender? After reading this thread where someone mentioned they saw that all ATs(I suppose this includes all powersets as well) had a use, I fail to see where an FF defender is just as good as a blaster when taking the above quote into account. It still looks like damage, holds, and heals rule supreme and any team would be better served by a scrapper, controller or blaster instead.

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Don't understeimate youself. You have a ranges attack secondary. You can fill in for a ragned attacker, or just do it. That IS something that you can do. One of my mains is a level 50 Peacebringer. My ranged attacks are even weaker then yours. In fact when I solo, I'm very much like your FF Defender.

"Tankers are Scrapper wannabes." How often has that been heard. Yes they do a lot less damage then Scrappers. But they can pinch hit for a Scrapper. A Blapper can do it, as well. And said Blapper can do the ranged attacker thing too. There is a lot of overlap between the Hero ATs. This new Hamidon is designed with that in mind. There are niches that need to be filled. Several ATs can function in those niches. We hav a lot of redundacy

I think that the eventual strategies will be a coordinated strikes attacks and distraction teams on Hamidon as a whole Having more targets in range make overall survive a little better. Your Dispersion Shield will be invalauble on that situation. And there is some need for Toxic Damage Resistance. If I'm not mistaken, your Bubble and Shield do provide a level of Toxic Damage Resistance.

The bottom line is that the new Hamidon is ALL INCLUSIVE. There is something for everyone to do. And that means EVERYONE including your FF Defender and my second fiddle to all Peacebringer. And the really fun thing is we still haven't figured Hamidon out yet. It's suppose to be doable in 1-2 hours. Come on into the goo. Plenty of debt to go around!!!!!

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I heard secondhand (so credibility is shaky, but still) that the towers at first had a limited range, and by pulling LR outside of that range the encounter was more manageable. And the devs reacted to that tactic by buffing the tower range to relative-infinity.

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That WAS true. But that got fixed a couple of patches back. Rescluse is now buffed by the towers no matter where he goes.

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Hopefully what this really means is powers like Twilight Grasp will be more effective with -regen on AVs.

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DING! DING! DING! DING! We have a Winnah!

Yep. IT means that all debuffs are now playing by the same rules. And Castle has an easier time of balancing out encounters. (Just paraphrase Castle, BTW).

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Maybe I'm way behind the learning curve here but the crafted enhancements that I was looking at today - comparing them to my level 50+s seem to be about +7.5% stronger across the board. Making a single crafted enhancement look like a nice little improvement over a 50++ - or any ++ enhancement for that matter.

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You're correct. The best IOs you can craft are several +% higher than any SO.

They have to be, in return for the investment.

Note that as a result of ED, replacing SOs with IOs is most effective when you're using only one or two of that type. Three IOs of one type get reduced pretty significantly by ED, just like SOs. Two IOs of a type will be reduced somewhat by ED too, but not too badly.

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For Schedule A, it's almost a 10% hit in boost. I respec my level 50 Peacebringer, and I was able to shave 5 slots off the the build. I lost a coupe of percent in Damage Resistance on my Light Form (Unstoppable) and an extra 20 seconds on the Rechage time. And lost 2 second of recharnge on my Essence Boost (Dull Pain), and I added 2 level 50 IO Health, But did gain +91% Max Health. And I was able to slot a recharge into 2 Human form ranged attack and my WD Smash. I am more then pleased with the better performance. I even respec into Gleaming Eyes from the Gleaming Bolt.

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From memory (and you can find the actual post with number with a quick search), all previously unresistable -regen powers are now resisted.

AV's resistance was changed from 94% to 85%.

NOTE - this is from memory, I suggest a search.

-- War

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That for a level 50 AV. IT scales by level it's 60% at level 1 and scales to 85% at level 50. That's general debuff resistance vs Running, Recharge, Endurance, ToHit, Regen, Recover, etc.

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So is it just a rehash of the RSF?

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Nope. It's what LRSF and Safeguard missions should be.

Whoot! Fitrst Post after a dev! Go me.

For those looking. Statesman is located in Independence Port on a Longbow ship docked in the harbor. It's located near the tram station. Go get your tail kicked by Lord Recluse, er, save the world.

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There are no level 53 Common Inventions. Commons only exist at 5 level increments starting at 10. Uncommons and Rares can go to 53 though.

It's based on the level of the enemy you defeated to get it.

You can still only slot Enhancements that are 3 levels higher than yourself, so your L10 character can't twink with an L53 IO.

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Ok, now I'm confused. I thought with the lvl 30-50 IOs if you slotted them it would mean you wouldn't need to reslot those powers with new enhancements as you progressed because the IO would scale with you. Is this not the case?

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You understand correctly. That's they way it works. Doc is saying that a level 10 can't slot a level 50 IO. But a level 50 can slot a level 10 IO (but the level 50 will only get getting a TO's worth of boost out of it. The same amount of boost that a level 10 character would get.

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Sapphire7 said
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Are you sure? Having never been on the taunter's team, and given that I lose Hami at the end of raids, I'm not sure, however I thought the Taunter's countdown timer for "Hami Held" was started when Hami stopped attacking. No?


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confirmed. This was changed.. what, I6? maybe I7. An extra random element now, as this pretty much stopped us from trully knowing when Hami was held. Before, we knew b/c he stopped firing period. Now, it's a guess, and i think based on hami ONLY firing at the taunter, not the hold spammers, and maybe some hold graphics on him.

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That is exactly how Aggro Tankers determine if Hamidon is held. I can't speak for other servers, but on Justice th aggro Tanker move up right next to Hami to make sure he has a good view of the the Hold graphics. And even then it can get bad at times when you have a large amount of people show up for the raid. At times on Justice the Aggro Tanker and Pet has as assitince off of has lost sight of Hami. And a couple of instances it was so bad that I couldn't see Hami even when I Phase Shifted and hovering inside of him.

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... After that, it'll probably be a quick fight and that's all she wrote.

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AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA <deep breath> HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

Um...No.

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[
I don't think we are talking about the same picture and that may be my fault. At the very bottom of the webpage there is a set of five pictures. I am referring to the top middle picutre. I would attach it but I do not know how.

It def looks like Black Scropion, no? and the same pic shows the samurai crouched with a wooden? spike protruding from each hand (the right hand can barely be seen). That is what I am referring to.

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Yes. That is Black Scorpion.

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The robot is a toxic from the looks of it.

The glowing sword is becuase of build up.

The spike shown in the other pic is the character's sword.

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Yes the Spider-bot. Is a Toxic Tarantula. Nasty as it's Toxic damage.

No that's not Build Up with a Sword. Tha's the end of the Toxiic Tarantula as it's attacking Samuari dude. Those green droplets look an awful lot like those from Dominators Thony Assault attacks with Physiics Effects enabled.

And that isn't a sword in Samauri Dudes left handle. Otherwise from the position of his handle a sword woulf be point upwards towards 10 o'clock with a visble pummel. If you enhance his right hand, you see what appearts to be a similar similar object with a similar color in an like orienttal to the right hand. And from playing my Plant/Thorns Dominator up from 1 to level 33 in the past few weeks, that looks like the graphics for Quills/Lunge whic is similar enough to Thorns/Skewer.

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I don't quite see how they can say they learned something and then say this. Having a certain AT be required, which is basically what this says, is no better than having one or more be marginalized.

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No, having certain abilities be /required/ to beat something is /good/.

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I have to vehemitely disagree with this. Requring the holy Triad to accomplish missions/quests/etc. is lazy, old school and has been done to death. I want to see try innovation and not a computerized versions of PnP RPGs. Cryptic has taken a minor step in moving away from the Triad with CoH and CoV. There is plenty of overlap between teh ATs, so you don't need any one AT to accomplish things. And I say small step as their still have classes which is still old school. IHMO Cryptic was on the right path with their original game design. Hopefully they'll really be able to cut loose with MUO

With that said I'm looking forward to the this TF. I haven't really attempted to LRSF as it doesn't strike me a all that much fun. After nearly 3 years of COH/CoV I'm watning a lot more then a huge AV zergfest. I want more then just have to mash buttons.