Jade_Dragon

Dark powers are pretty much covered with Necromancy, so Demon Summoning covering Fire, Ice and Toxic seems like a good mix to me. It will work well with any "elementalist" magical summoner concept, and so both Thermal and Storm Summoning will work well with them, as well as Cold Domination when it is Proliferated.

I used the high backed wooden chair with the red velvet bench in front of it as a door. Just turned it around and stuck the bench part into the "wall". I also used the Supergroup logo stand, the one made of glass, as windows.

It was an amateurish attempt, though, my first time to try such a thing. I'm sure others have done better jobs.

The problem with just raising the base Endurance recovery rate is that it doesn't address the issue that Stamina is a "must have" power. Those without it will still have exactly the same Endurance issues relative to those with it, and those with it will still continue to push for more recharge and higher damage powers until they exceed their recovery. You haven't solved the problem, just changed the ratio from a factor of 5 seconds until you run out of End to 7 seconds until you run out of End.

Perhaps a workable solution would be to raise the base Endurance recovery of all ATs, but then lower Stamina by an equal amount. Then the gap between those who have Stamina and those who don't, and between those who 3 slot stamina and those who don't, will be reduced. But to do that would reduce the usefulness of Stamina. One of the selling points of Stamina is that it can dramatically increase the amount of damage you are capable of doing the more slots you put into it. Since Endurance slotting is on the same schedule as everything else, that means Stamina must have a very high base rate, so the slotting can increase the rate accordingly.

In other words:

No Stamina = 0
Stamina = 3
Stamina 1 slot = 4
Stamina 2 slot = 5
Stamina 3 slot = 6

There is no 1 or 2, you jump from 0 to 3 just by picking up the power. Raising base recovery won't solve that, and neither, really, will lowering Stamina's rate. The best you could do is put a -End modifier on Stamina that is not enhanceable, so if you just get Stamina it's 1/3 of what it is now, and you have to 3 slot it to get the effect of Stamina with 1 slot.

Personally, I feel that all this change is going to do is turn Stamina from a "must have" power to a "must slot" power. You will get it for free, but the powergamers are still going to insist it must be 3 slotted. Or even 4 slotted to add a Performance Shifter. The gap will still be there, but at least now it will be about half what it was. Again, Endurance management and the use of other Endurance efficiency powers will be able to take the place of 3 slotting Stamina, but they will be able to build on a base of more Endurance to start with.

Honestly, if the other Endurance management powers were as powerful as Stamina, then Stamina would not be as popular as it is. And even in the case of Quick Recovery, which are directly comparable as more powerful, it is still accepted that you should take BOTH. Again, you can never have too much Endurance recovery, no matter how much you have, you ALWAYS will be wanting more.

As for Defenders having greater Endurance requirements than Blasters, given than a Defender can achieve an average 0.85 relative damage scale with a 30% Res debuff, and Rad and Kin Defenders can achieve far greater than this, I would hardly say this is the case. Rather, a Defender's ratio of damage to End cost is not static, as with a damage dealer, but depends on its Buff/Debuff Set choice. ATs that depend on Buff/Debuff sets thus tend to vary in their End costs based on Set.

The devs could deal with this by making sets that have less offensive buffs have more End efficiency tools, and those that have more offensive buffs have less End efficienty tools, but in all honestly it seems as if the devs' intention is exactly the opposite. Rad and Kin, which have the highest offense, also have the highest End efficiency. In addition, while it seems on the surface Vigilance was meant to address this, and give Defenders more End efficiency overall, once again those sets with a defensive specialization will have teammates with higher HP, and thus less End efficiency.

It seems, in fact, as if the devs want those Defenders that are team-oriented and defensive to have issues maintaining enough Endurance to use their attacks. Or at the very least, they intend for ATs and builds with a defensive slant to have more trouble monitoring End, since they will have less trouble monitoring HP. (Brutes, certainly, would become far more powerful if given more End efficiency)

The simple answer to this is that if there are 50+ foes in your spawn, you need 4 Tankers to hold their aggro. (3 will do it, but barely, 4 would be safer)

A Tanker should not be needed on a team, though. If you can figure out how to manage your aggro, you will not need a Tanker to defend you. As an Illusion Controller, one of the first things you can do is use Spooky and your other pets to hold down foes and take their aggro. Also be careful of the AoE debuffs. Siphon Power should be great for pulling one foe, but if you are buffing your allies with it that could draw attention. Or maybe you are using Transfusion or Fulcrum Shift.

Finally, if you're level 1 on a high level team (which means you wouldn't have the pets) you're going to have a hard time surviving. Either pick and choose your targets carefully, or find a lower level team.

Heeheehee... this is an interesting thread.

I'll start by saying that some of my other characters I have actually thought about the things that the author does to their characters, and some of the moral qualms about that. In particular, one of my D&D characters I gave her a backstory in which she had been violently assaulted, much like Red Sonja. It shaped her character, though, and made her who she ended up as. I still feel guilty about that, though. Which I suppose is good, I can at least say that I have respect for my characters, and try to treat them as such...

My sister also came up with a character who had the ability to travel between universes, and I played with the idea of her travelling to other fictional universes, and even knowing that her own was fictional. She would be interesting to talk to, I think, because she UNDERSTANDS that, more than just coming to that realization, it is an instinctual knowledge to her. (Or the entity she is bonded with, anyway)

As for my characters here in CoH:

I think Sandy would be embarrassed that I'm always staring at her butt. Not upset, it would just make her really shy and self conscious. She would probably be constantly glancing back to see if I'm looking, or covering herself up. She'd probably wear the costume in which she has pants on more often.

Alan Midnight would grumble something like "figures" and drop the subject. His AI Rachel would completely understand the idea of living as an avatar in a virtual world. She would also have exactly the opposite reaction to my always looking at her from behind. She would flaunt it.

Bloodwolf would punch me out for killing his wife (well, coming up with the story that his wife was killed, anyway) in order to make him into a vengeful vigilante. Then he would eventually realize that I can't bring her back, and he still has work to do.

Blue Diamond would probably punch me out too, just in general, but then slap me on the back and say, "It's been great fun, though. Write me a really cool one where I get to beat up all the bad guys next time." Jade Dragon would be curious and ask a lot of questions. He'd be particularly curious about the motives of Silver Bolt, his rival that I created, as well as my knowledge of the villain groups in the game. He would love to get his hands on Paragonwiki. (So would Bloodwolf, actually, and he'd probably break into the site sometime after learning of my existance)

Silver Bolt would be very frustrated at the idea of someone creating and controlling him, but would question the wisdom of killing his own creator. He would probably end up responding very much like Jade Dragon, grilling me for information. He would probably kidnap me for it, only to have JD come along to rescue me, and then I'd probably have the reconcile the two by saying I'd be glad to sit down and have a nice friendly chat with both of them.

Joe would say, "You could have at least given me some powers."

My characters that I have renamed and changed their character would say "Make up your mind!"

The level 1s I created to pad my SG would ask when I'm ever going to play them. Not to mention the ones I created to hold a name while I moved the original to another server. "What? I'm a CLONE? Do you know how lame that is? I'm freaking Ben Reilly! GAH!"

My Illusion/Rad Controller hates dealing damage, because with her matter control powers the most efficient way she can do this is to physically merge with them, and then will wounds to open in their skin. This hurts HER, because it's essentially the same as causing wounds to her own body.

For this reason, she's primarily a team support character, using her Secondary and her illusiory pets. It's easier on her to restrain her foes and blind them than actually hurt them. She'll defend herself if attacked, but prefers not to fight herself if she can help it.

Another thing to remember is that Nova is no better. It has a 1.2 damage scale, true (and a +45% damage bonus) but it's single target basic attacks are 1.5 seconds and 4 sec recharge. They are WORSE than the Dwarf attacks. The only reason the Nova is known as a damage dealing platform is because of its two AoE attacks. And even those cannot compete with a Tier 9 nuke like Inferno.

Plus, you WANT those attacks to be fast, if they had long recharge times, you would be sitting around doing nothing waiting for them to recharge, and you do enough of that as it is. Your DPS would be no better if the Dwarf attacks were 6 and 10 seconds, or even if one of them was a 20 second massive attack like Seismic Smash or KO Blow. Since you don't have a saturated attack chain, you would just be standing there doing nothing while your enemies beat on you. That's why the Nova and Dwarf basic attacks ARE so fast.

That's why I continue to insist that for a Peacebringer, the HUMAN FORM is the damage dealer. The Human Form PB has Iridescent Strike and Radiant Strike, but no fast melee attacks like most meleers. It is BUILT for you to fight in Dwarf form, wait for Iridescent Strike to recharge, and drop out of Dwarf form for a massive blow. Then back to Dwarf to bring back up your defenses. That is the way you deal damage in White Dwarf form, by taking advantage of form shifting.

Likewise, as a Warshade you will drop out of Dwarf form to Double Mire. The Kheldian is not about staying in one form and trying to make it work on its own. Although you still need to strike a balance between running out of the few slots you have available to spread around, and slotting your attacks well enough to make their Endurance cost managable. Personally I find that while 3 slotting attacks in the early levels can be painfully difficult, 2 slotting them can be adequate to the task. If you can use an IO to dual slot Accuracy and Damage, so much the better. (You usually don't need full 33% Acc, 16% is usually enough)

Besides which, Kheldians ARE the Green Lantern Corps, they're this universe's version of "alien forces joining with humans to fight evil". Why make a Green Lantern (TM) when there's a perfectly good Cosmic Hero concept in this game?

The shape changing is new, certainly, but as mentioned, you can go pure Human Form if you want to.

As for a Blaster or Dominator, while they're certainly options, I personally balk at the idea of a Green Lantern concept that cannot use his power defensively. Yes, you can restrain foes for damage mitigation, but Green Lantern puts up shields. It's one of the primary uses of his power.

To each his own, though. Some people don't like the concept of sacrificing what they think of as overwhelmingly strong firepower for defensive capability. Which is fine, that's what Blasters and Dominators are for.

Either Force Field/Energy Blast Defender or (if you wanted a balance more towards offense) Energy Blast/Sonic Resonance Corruptor. Hopefully in the future there will be the Force Field option for Corruptors as well, although with a lack of a strong offensive boost it will not be a very strong Corruptor Set, IMHO.

A Human Form Peacebringer would also be very close to Green Lantern.

If you are looking more for the Green Lantern type that makes things out of his ring and has them fight for him, an Illusions/Force Field Controller would also be a good option.

Note you would have to recolor the powers, but you'd probably want to pick a color other than green anyway so as not to get too close to copyright territory. (Although the color scheme of my namesake is no concidence, BTW. Neither is the fact that he is a FF/Rad Defender...)

The strategy for any Kheldian is to come up with a unifying theme behind your build first. With other ATs you have a choice of sets, you can be a Invulnerability Scrapper, an SR Scrapper, a Regen Scrapper and so forth. Kheldians give you a lot more freedom to mix and match capabilities like defense, healing and attacks, but you can't take EVERYTHING. You have to decide what fits your theme.

While for the most part this comes down to individual playing styles and preference, let me give you some examples:

Of course, I'm assuming in all cases you will pick up Stygian Circle, Mire and Eclipse, to skip those on any build would be foolish.

1) The Tri-Form Build - For any Tri-Former, the forms should have well defined roles. For a Warshade, that is blasts for the Nova, scrapping for the Dwarf, and utility/controls for the Human. Skip all blasts and most of the shields (go head and pick up Gravity Shield, but that's it) on the Human. You won't need them because you'll be in another form most of the time. Shadow Cloak, Starless Step, Gravity Well and Essence Drain will be your bread and butter powers for Human form.

2) Human/Dwarf Build - Here you are going for Dwarf for scrapping, and so you will want Human for your ranged. Now you will want the blasts, Dark Detonation, Unchain Essence, and maybe even some moderate shields. The controls and stealth will be less important, although you will want to go with some AoE controls, like Gravitic Emanation.

3) Pets/Utility - Let's say you want to use lots of pets and utility powers. You would go with Dark Extraction, first of all, slotted for lots of recharge so you can have several of them out. Unchain Essense so after you pets kill something you can make it explode. Shadow Cloak and Starless Step for sneaky tactics and divide and conquer. Inky Aspect, Quasar, and maybe even Orbiting Death for AoE damage and controls after your pets grab aggro. You would use your forms for tanking and hovering out of range, you might contribute yourself to the damage, but that wouldn't be the focus of your build. The forms might be light on slots, and you would skip most attacks.

And that's just the start. There's Tri-Forms, Bi-Forms, and Human Form builds, and all the different strategies on top of that. It may help to use dual builds to test out different combos and see which you like.