Jabbrwock
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Posts
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Joined
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Quote:So you're saying that if squishies got a little mez protection, they'd still be. . . squishy? That an extra mag or 2 of mez protection wouldn't turn them into unstoppable gods of death automatically able to solo AV's in +4/8 missions and suck all the challenge out of the game? That all it would do would be to block the occasional annoyance of having a minion get a lucky shot and stun you out of your toggle debuffs, which turn off completely instead of suppressing like armor toggles do, and often have inconvenient recharges if you have to wait on them in the middle of a fight?Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect
My half-a-billion influence BS/DA can handle +0/x6....barely, and only if I'm on my game, one slip up and I'm toast.
My Claws/Regen, who's build is probably just as expensive, struggles on +0/x3 or 4. x6 is beyond him, and x8 is a pipe dream. But he's a scrapper, so he should have no problem with that...right?
I mean, he has mez protection, which is apparently the only thing I need to be an unkillable uber-god. So...what's the problem? Mez protection is easy mode, right? Why can't my character solo on +4/x8 like the hordes of (fictional) scrappers out there doing it all day long?
Could it possibly be that....(gasp!)....maybe mez protection isn't that damned important after all?!
Nah, couldn't be, it's already been proven (eyeroll) that mez protection is all you need to do impossible things.
Yes, I'm being sarcastic, this thread deserves it by this point.
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Quote:Any Empath who isn't casting Fortitude regularly is doing it wrong, unless they're too low level to have it. The Empath in question was neither too low level to have Fortitude, nor was she casting it regularly. She was, thus, doing it wrong. And getting complimented anyway.Originally Posted by perwira
In all fairness, it was never made clear which powers the said defender did or did not have during the TF. One cannot pass judgment without complete information, beyond which any comment is hypothetical (if not hypocritical) at best. A point was made that is equally as valid as the rest made here with what we've been given.
If there'd been any discussion of why she wasn't casting Fortitude, there might have been a good reason. Some builds are not very Exemplar-compliant. Instead, it seems that expectations are so low that nobody but the OP even noticed she was lacking a critical power. When expectations are so low nobody notices the lack of *FORTITUDE* on an Empathy Defender, and healing is so overvalued that an Empath who isn't casting fortitude is told she's awesome, there's something desperately wrong. -
What stands out to me is that he appears to really think he's doing it right. It's one thing to do nothing but heal because that's your concept. It's gimping you, but I can have some tolerance for somebody not being as useful as they could be for concept reasons. It's something far less tolerable if they're doing it because they're just lazy and can't be bothered to get out of healbot mode. And worse still, albeit at least correctible, is doing it because you seriously think that dedicating yourself to nothing but healing is the most effective way to play a Corruptor.
Only one of those three options is at all tolerable to me. The second option would be met with a kick from the team, and the third with some (hopefully tactful) education on just what a Corruptor can really do when he uses all his powers. Of course, sometimes it's hard to tell the three apart, which is why I'd tend to err on the side of tolerance or correction rather than hard-line kicking anybody who doesn't use all their powers to my satisfaction. -
Quote:Slotting accuracy before damage is a good idea. Slotting endurance and recharge before damage is not. Slotting damage improves both the endurance efficiency of the attack and the time efficiency of the attack. Endurance reduciton and recharge reduction enhancements only improve one of those traits - and not by any more than slotting damage would.Originally Posted by W Peace
Not knowing your secondary, we can't tell you exactly how to slot, but it's a good idea to go with 2-3 acc TOs, and 1-2 acc DOs once you can get em. After that, a recharge and/or end redux in attacks can help you get your damage over time up and sustainable. Really, only slot Damage once you have DOs, and only then when you already have Acc and End/Rech redux well slotted. Remember, you aren't doing damage if you don't have any attacks ready, you aren't doing damage if you don't have the endurance to use your attacks, and you really aren't doing damage if all you ever do is miss.
~WP
Would you rather kill an enemy by hitting it twice with a 16 endurance attack that takes 8 seconds to recharge, or by hitting it four times with an 8 endurance attack that takes 8 seconds to recharge, or by hitting it four times with a 16 endurance attack that takes 4 seconds to recharge? If you didn't choose the former, there's something wrong with your brain.
TLDR - slot damage before endurance reduction or recharge reduction. Unless you're a Brute, and these don't look like the Brute forums. -
Quote:Well, in the formative days of the game, Resistance was obscenely overpowered. This was due partly to defense being mechanically gimpy - it didn't properly adjust for enemies above minion status, or for higher level enemies, so you needed a *TON* of defense to be equivalent to a relatively easily acquired amount of resistance. It was also partly due to two resistance-heavy sets, Invulnerability and Fiery Aura, actually functioning mostly properly at the beginning, while most of the defense based sets were burdened with horribly flawed mechanics like exclusive armors and powers strictly inferior to pool powers. It wouldn't shock me to discover that there is some lingering mentality remaining among the devs that makes them very leery of potentially bringing resistance based sets back up, especially given that one of the two big winners of the old days, Invulnerability, is still quite awesome thanks to layered protections.Originally Posted by Mandur12
I could be so off base here, but I figured the fact that both the +res(all) and +def(all) IOs in the PvP sets being the same value informed us that the devs are much more comfortable nowadays with people having massive amounts of defense but not having massive amounts of DR, and why DR is so hard to come by in IO sets. Extreme defense, being subject to the random number generator, can outlast granite tanks at times, or be killed as fast as an /afk blaster, and the RNG is harder to game than a capped DR toon would be imo, and what I could imagine the opinion of the devs to be. Though Castle's response might be interpreted to contradict what I've always assumed about this subject.
Looking back on those old days, it's kind of cool to see how far the game has come. Even the bad sets actually work properly these days, for example. -
I would submit that the real problem with Gravity Control, for Doms anyway, is not DS, but Lift and Propel. Two single target soft (very soft) controls whose primary function is dealing damage may have a point for Controllers. For Dominators, who get an entire secondary devoted to dealing damage, they seem a waste.
As for Dimension Shift and the Cottage Rule, the first rule of changing things needs to be "Once you've decided that something is broken, fix it." Now, maybe the devs think that DS is fine, or at least OK. Maybe they think that Gravity Control is fine, or at least OK. But if not, they need to fix it, and the structure of the set pretty much demands that if it's broken, one or more of Lift, Propel, and Dimension Shift needs to be changed to a more generally useful form of control. Which means, sadly, that the cottage rule needs to go out the window, since there's no way they'll justify making Lift into an AoE knockup field at its current spot in the set, and neither Propel nor Dimension Shift can be twisted into something generally useful to fix Gravity's shortcomings without making a complete mockery of the Cottage Rule.
Not like it would be the first time - Gravity Control itself provides an example of flagrantly disregarding the Cottage Rule. And I don't think anybody much misses the ability to teleport your entire team to you that the set gave up to get Singularity. -
Is there a good way to use a path name with spaces?
I don't want to dump my CoH binds anywhere but in my CoH directory (or a sub-directory). My pathname is:
C:\Program Files\City of Heroes\
I'm used to getting around the first part by calling it C:\Progra~1, but I'm not sure how "City of Heroes" would get truncated. Cityof~1? City o~1? I should know not to let the installer put a default name on a directory. . . oh well. -
OK, people. To everybody complaining about how this ruins Fire Tankers. . . what are you smoking?
Have you even *LOOKED* at what they did to Invuln and Ice Armor? The changes so far seem more like "Whew, dodged the bullet for another issue," than "DooOOooOOmMmm!" to me.
Burn is, to me, a dead power now. I agree with that assessment, and it sucks. Too slow, to hard to use, just not worth the hassle. However, with the new and "improved" I5 Tankers, Fiery Aura as a set is not dead - at least, it is alive to whatever extent City of Heroes survives the I5 Nerfapalooza. It's still a set that compares quite well to other personal defensive sets, it just shines in a completely different area than it used to.
No, Fire Tankers won't be able to do what they used to - but neither will anybody else. If you can't deal with that, quit the game now, because characters *WILL* be reined in from what they can do in I4 - Statesman's vision demands it. However, Fire Tankers will be operating at a high comparative level in I5, much as they are in I4 - they'll just be above average in a different way.
Considering how bad things *COULD* have been, the proposed changes are pretty minor, and extremely livable.
I feel like a fanboy for posting this. Don't get me wrong, I like I4 Fiery Aura much more than I5 Fiery Aura. But the current test build Fiery Aura is *SO* much better than what I was actually expecting to see that the complaints seem overdone. -
It's not like your first contact is going to be the only contact you get in the 3 newbie zones of AP, GC, and KR. You'll keep getting contacts in those zones up to level 9, if you actually do contact missions.
There are, however, more contacts to choose from in AP. For that reason, I usually choose GC is my starting place - more chances that I'll end up with an inspiration seller in each of the 3 zones.
GC is also much more civilized than AP, at least as far as the hero populace is concerned. Less KSing, less inane broadcast chatter, less lag, less problems all around. The neighborhood may need some work, but the people are top notch. Well, except for those darned zombies. -
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This one simple little change has killed the solo game for close range blasters which relied upon the stealth component of super speed.
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What's especially annoying about this is that those Blasters, who really needed the stealth, were the major reason I considered the accuracy penalty to be such a horrible idea. Mind you, I thought it was a useless idea for a variety of other reasons, but by and large, for pretty much ever aspect of the game I cared about, it was harmless - except for Blasters who needed SS for stealth. And the suppression system doesn't help worth squat for that - it is, if anything, even worse than the accuracy penalty. At least Aim + Build Up can overcome the accuracy penalty. -
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If they weren't listening they'd keep those travel power acc debuffs...
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And the -acc debuff has been on Flight since beta why...
...because they don't listen.
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I think it's not a case of them not listening, so much as them not caring. They have their vision, which bears only a peripheral resemblance to the game they produced. Everybody who might have liked their vision has pretty much tried the game, hated it, and left for greener pastures. Now that they have a game almost exclusively populated by people who are pretty much OK with the game the devs produced, they are trying to bring it militantly in line with their vision. Which, as I previously mentioned, bears only a peripheral resemblance to the game most of their paying customers are pretty much happy with.
Basically, they chased away their intended audience, but accidentally produced a game that appealed to a different audience. Now they're going to chase away their real audience in a bid to make a game to appeal to people who have already left the game and likely won't come back.
What the heck, it's not *MY* investment capital. -
Best post since World of Burgercraft!
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The only AT that has never had a player post a screenshot or video of soloing an AV happens to be blasters.
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Are you sure? Back during the Smoke Grenade/Caltrops bugfest, it would surprise me if a few Blasters didn't manage to solo AV's at various times. Heck, with Caltrops functioning as an unresistable hold right there in the beginning, an AV would be a cakewalk. Certainly nothing recent, though, Blasters just don't have the tools any more. Not that anybody should have the tools, but Blasters are conspicuous by the lack. -
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I am a bit curious. When the AT were created did you work from powers in the power sets or did you think I like Green Lantern and He has these powers so a blaster has these powers. Right now it seems the easist AT to run and solo thru the game is a tank everyone else has to pick and choose their battles. I say read a few more comic books. A spider-man or batman could not live in the city of heroes.
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Bwahahaha. Spiderman is a /Super Reflexes Scrapper. His primary, sadly, is not implemented yet - the street fighting set that has been mentioned as an idea by the devs but probably has not even begun development. That aside, a Scrapper's ability to prosper in City of Heroes is almost entirely dependent on his secondary power set, and I can say from experience that a /Super Reflexes Scrapper is entirely capable of surviving in City of Heroes.
Batman is a harder hero to classify - in many ways, he's almost a tank-mage. Martial Arts/Super Reflexes Scrapper comes closest to describing him, but he has aspects of a Mind Controller and a /Devices Blaster as well. Don't discount him just because he's a Natural origin hero, CoH doesn't discriminate.
Fire Tanks and non-Dark Armor Scrappers certainly have the easiest ride beginning to end in City of Heroes, but there are plenty of Defenders who can solo easily and effectively, and even most Controllers make out like bandits in the 32+ game, which is the bulk of a character's lifespan. It's Blasters who have the real problems dealing with the game as it presently exist, as there are a limited number of power sets that really play to the AT's strengths, and even they are walking a narrow line between success and death. Which is why so many Blasters are upset that STatesman seems to be brushing their concerns off. To be fair, most Scrappers are upset too, since Statesman seems to be on an anti-Scrapper binge right now - we'd be happy to see him start paying attention to somebody else, especially somebody who cannot be nerfed with even the tiniest shred of credibility. -
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So Havok has NEVER made an uppercut? He has NEVER punched another character? Cyclops has NEVER kicked or punched anyone? Green Arrow never has? No Blaster in the history of comics has EVER thrown a punch?
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That's not much justification for putting all those melee attacks in the secondary. Blasters who melee almost universally are using common normal attacks. Punches like Brawl, Boxing, or Air Superiority. Kicks like, well, Kick. Occasionally using some real skill, but never anything like the real martial arts heroes use - even allegedly normal martial artists like Batman. No, when Blasters in comic books are fighting in melee, it's pool powers they're using, almost universally. -
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I went away from the computer to check on some CoV stuff and *wham* I received 5 or so PM's asking "what is the Blaster's role?"
Answer - Ranged damage. Now, the issue is more specifically - what does a Blaster do that a Scrapper can't already do? Or, even worse, is a Scrapper inherently "stronger" than a Blaster. We want each Archetype to have a well defined role, and part of our Scrapper testing is aimed directly at this.
Secondly, I have no intention of removing melee attacks - it's just a "perception" by some Blasters that some of the Secondary Sets aren't as useful as Devices or Energy Manipulation. This is a rather frequent refrain in PM's (and the occasional forum post). This is something that we should also explore...we want all the Secondary sets to be fun.
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it's just a "perception" by some Blasters that some of the Secondary Sets aren't as useful as Devices or Energy Manipulation.
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If "by some" you mean the vast majority, then I would say I agree with you.
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Well +1 isn't "vast". 3 bad, 2 good. At worst. Otherwise, the majority turns around, and it is equally "vast".
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Vast majority referred to players, not sets. The perception by "some" players (aka, nearly everybody in the known universe, less, apparently, Statesman) is that Fire, Ice, and Electricity Manipulation aren't nearly as good as Energy Manip and Devices. -
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Now see, that's entirely different than the way I've been told the formulas work- percentages directly add or subtract, not take a percentage off. I'll admit that didn't come directly from a developer's mouth (or keyboard), but the original post was being quoted at the time- so I'm fairly positive it'd be as I've done it.
And I'm honestly not sure how you're coming up with the second set of numbers. Accuracy debuff enhancements at SO level give a 33.3% boost. So if you have 3, you have effectively a 100% increase- it's doubled. Similarly, three endurance reduction enhancements should drop your endurance cost to half.
Eh. Whatever.
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The second set of numbers is simply the inverse of the accuracy debuff - if accuracy is debuffed by 60%, then accuracy is reduced to 40%, which is 0.4. So 50% accuracy (0.5) is multiplied by 40% (0.4) resulting in 20% (0.2).
I'm almost positive that accuracy debuff works by a percentage of the base value, and in fact, that most debuffs do so. Defense, however, is a straight subtraction from base accuracy. That may have been what you saw quoted. -
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umm...you guys realize that they are adding controls for loops/particle effect..as well as stores on maps in patches soon right?
..or am I stil lthe only one who listens to what the devs say
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Cryopulse:
Well, these options STILL aren't in, so....why listen to them unless they have ETAs?
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No kidding, right?!
I just thought the ETA comment was a good one... otherwise I have no idea what the previously quoted comment was about.
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Since some of the more popular mods are to remove looping sounds and show stores on maps, the most commonly used mods will become obsolete when these features become inherent in the official version of the game, so why all the griping about the no-mod-discussion? At least, that's what I think was his point, not absolutely sure. Still, the no ETA thing is a big one. For that matter, the fact that these features will be in, even if we had an ironclad release date, would still not do a single thing to make my current play experience less annoying when I'm going nuts due to superspeed's thrumming or targeting drone's humming or the difficulty of finding unmarked stores. -
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Well one reward for long time play will be first picks for the CoV beta testing.
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A point, and I appreciate the gesture, even though my interest in City of Villains would have to increase substantially to be nonexistent.
I think that some props to veterans in game, who've stuck with things for a long time, would make folks feel appreciated, even if we don't really play enough (or efficiently enough) to hit 50. -
I don't necessarily think that veterans should get the DVD extras for free. On the other hand, I think it would be cool, and quite classy of Cryptic/NCSoft, to institute player rewards for long time players. Nothing big, but maybe a prestige sprint-clone for characters more than 6 real months old, or an opportunity to re-choose your character's titles after 6 months or something. Just a reward for loyal customers, the way the DVD extras are lures to acquire new customers. 6 months is just a number I pulled out of thin air, nothing special except that that would be about what the oldest characters are right now.