Jade_Dragon

Targetting Drone also gives a bonus to Sniper Rifle's damage, although it is considerably smaller than the bonus for Aim or Build Up, making its usefulness questionable. More damage is more damage, however, which is the one reason my AR/Dev has it.

I agree, though, that debuffing Corruptor/Defenders will usually want to open with a debuff, whereas buffers will be able to carry over their buffs from the last spawn. While Corruptors don't get Empathy, Pain Domination is similar in that what damage boosts it gets are either available right away, or have to wait until damage is taken by the team. Only Anguishing Cry could be used as an opener.

Yeah, one thing I have done is used Kinetics as "gadgets" in the past. But it's nice to have gadgets you can actually SEE as gadgets.

That's a question I would like see answered. Acid Mortar has a HP bar, as does FF Generator, and both show up in the Pet window for MMs. I honestly am not sure if my Acid Mortar is drawing aggro, or just being hit by splash damage from AoEs. It doesn't look like it's drawing a lot of fire, so I would guess the aggro is transferred to you.

This would have to be the case with the bombs, since after they deal their damage they are no longer around to draw aggro anyway.

I have a Blaster that originally was supposed to use a beam sword, I chose Fire instead because Energy has no sword. I still can't create her as a Dominator, because Fire Assault has no sword either.

You can recolor the Fire Sword to be bright blue, to make it look like a energy sword instead of fire. It will still set foes on fire, but the sword itself can be made to look like energy. And if you want a straight one and not curved, you can select the Greater Fire Sword model. (Although its size may not perfectly fit concept either)

Ice you're generally stuck with, although an alternate model that looks more like an energy field might be an option BaBs could add. In this case the "energy" would be cold and not hot. You're still doing Ice or Fire damage, though, there'll be no way to make it do Energy. Unless one of the Energy attacks could be changed to use an energy blade, and I think that bumps up against the redraw idea again. (I'm honestly not sure what the difference between Weapon Set redraw and individual powers that look like a weapon are, in terms of redraw, but I think at the least the redraw is much faster)

He's not talking about a Broadsword becoming flaming, he's talking about a broadsword being used to cast Fire Blast.

And it's not that it would be imbalanced due to the fire, it's that drawing the broadsword would slow down Fire Blast's attacks.

It may be minimal, but it is still an impact on balance. And keep in mind that powergamers will always choose the most effective option under any given circumstances, and so they will always choose to use the no weapon option. Casual players will interpret that as them being penalized because they choose to build for concept and not gameplay.

And really, we have evidence that the redraw feature has a significant effect on balance. When it was removed from the overall cast time of the weapon sets, they became significantly stronger. To the point where Claws actually had to be nerfed to bring it back to the DPS it had before. It may depend on how fast the weapon set is, with slower weapons being effected less, but it DOES have an impact.

The only argument I see would be that before the redraw was a constant thing, 100%, and now it is a smaller fraction, maybe 10-20% of the time based on your other powers and how well you manage it. Removal of that remaining 20% should be less than the original removal of 80%.

Personally, I think a better option would be a separate Power Set which is balanced around the idea that you have a Staff or other item you are casting attack effects from.

I thought so too, but then Aett_Thorn called what I thought that referred to as the "Bridge". Which makes sense. So I'm guessing it's not as common as the "anchor" of a debuff.

Well, to me, I think it's what I said. Corruptors and Dominators can't really use a Snipe to its maximum efficiency. And really, the concept of the Snipe is about assassination, and taking out a specific foe with a single shot. It fits within the idea of what a Stalker is and what he's supposed to do.

In practice it may not be as useful as an Assassin Strike. But then again, that's what an Assassin Strike is, a melee range Sniper attack. It has exactly the same mechanism, a short period in which you can be interrupted followed by an extremely high burst damage attack. It's just because you are a Stalker, you can remain in melee range while charging up an interruptable attack and manage to actually get it to go off.

I guess the question is why do you need TWO Sniper attacks? But I can see uses for it as a pulling tool, like you said. You can sniper a foe, and duck behind cover LONG before his allies can see and attack you. If timed right, you can go back into Hide before they get to you, and make a Critical attack as they round the corner. This is actually a technique I used to use all the time before Placate, I would AS a foe, duck behind a post, and leap out and Crit on another foe.

Another possibility is to charge up a Snipe on a foe that decides to run from me. Or any situation where a Scrapper would normally use Confront, although normally I use my Origin attack for that.

BTW, if you're pulling, and you're just standing there where the bad guys can shoot at you, whether you're a Stalker or not, you're not pulling. It's not really breaking Hide you're concerned about, it's drawing aggro, so the foes know where you are even when you're in Hide.

Needless to say, many of us enjoy responding to good questions, and most of us were probably writing while others were posting. Glad we could help.

Actually, I'd think the obvious Psi pairing is already there; Pain Domination.

And as the devs have pointed out before, a Psi based Melee set would still do partially Smashing/Lethal damage, as all Melee sets do. Which would depend on whether it's consider a telekinetic type of psychic power, or if they decide to go with the obvious "Psi Knives". (Although the latter might rile up Marvel again)

It's not a matter of if, though, it's a matter of when.

Dual Pistols is the most damaging when it comes to the personal attacks of the Mastermind himself.

The thing is, though, the Mastermind's attacks are not about dealing damage. They're there either 1) for show, 2) for secondary effects like knockback/stun or 3) to supplement Provoke in holding aggro. The Revolver (not Pistol, sorry) or a Vet Reward like Sands of Mu can actually be much better because you don't have to spend a slot on them, and you do more damage, besides. (Temp Powers are not subject to the AT modifiers for damage)

I do give the attack more credit than the norm for these forums. I've done tests and confirmed that your own attacks can do significant portions of your damage until level 22, while at that level your overall damage is at a low point, which can make levelling an MM, particulary Bots, frustrating. Once you are past that "hump", though, I do agree that attacks are not needed.

As a Tanker you should be used to that, though. Your henchmen are really your damage dealers, while you provide the defense and support. (And for Tankerminding, hold the aggro) You'll find people who use the attacks, and people who insist you should never use the attacks, but either way I would never base which Primary to go with on what your weapon is. You can always find a way around that if you don't think your gun fits concept. (I have a Ninjas/FF girl whom the bow just doesn't fit at all, so she uses Sands of Mu as psuedo-martial arts, and the Revolver)

Oh, yeah, I definately agree there.

Although if I found a way to implement it in an MA arc, I would DEFINATELY note BEFORE you start the arc that it cannot be completed without a team.

I always like that this question comes up. I also find it a little funny that it came up here, although I suppose indirectly it is on topic. (The more options you have to utilize your character in the game world, the more fleshed out it likely becomes as an Intellectual Property)

My understanding is that ANY work is individual and protected by copyright law at the moment of its creation. If the work is based on a previous work, then it is a derivative work, and the owners of the copyright on the previous work have a right to the derivative work as well. Since we as players of CoH are assembling property created by Paragon Studios (originally Cryptic) into a new derivative work, we have to share the copyright with the owners of the game that lets us visualize them.

In other words, NCSoft/Paragon Studios isn't taking away our right to our characters, just enforcing their own rights. The license that lets them use the likeness of our characters in advertising and their comic books just extends that, so they don't have to make the request of each of us individually when they do choose to use them. The license is pretty limited in its scope, though, and probably wouldn't cover the things we could choose to do with our IP outside of the CoH environment.

My main three characters in this game were created by me originally outside of City of Heroes. I can prove this, because I have posted stories with them on the Internet copyrighted in 2001, before CoH came online. There are subtle differences between the two universes, though, for instance in my original version I was trying to get away from them wearing costumes, and because of the nature of the game there are differences in how their powers work. So I just regard them as two different works, my characters in my own stories aren't exactly the same as the ones here.

Of course, in terms of copyright law it is important that I do own the original, so that I can use them here, but I don't feel that extends the other way, giving Paragon any claim to the original. Plus, if I were actually to be making money off of them, instead of just posting them on my site for free, I would probably change the names or other details to make them more distinct. I might make some kind of a deal, like that couple of webcomic artists who were going to make some MA arcs, as mentioned a while ago, but I'd want to make sure the work was at least recognized, or even paid for.

Well, there are already missions that require two teammates to click glowies, so this would be no different. Just make sure to put the same disclaimer on the mission text that says, "You need a least one other teammate to complete this mission."

As much as I wouldn't want to add more content that can't be soloed, I think if this was still fairly rare it would be okay.

Yeah, that's kind of a limitation of the whole Primary/Secondary thing. Putting the attacks in the Secondary would take away useful powers from it, and it wouldn't really be a "pure" Buff/Debuff set either. OTOH, you do have the Patron powers when you get to 40, so there's a third attack type if you want it. The Arachnos Mace might be the kind of thing you want as a technology item. (Although it fires energy beams too)

One option is to buy a Pistol recipe in the Black Market and craft it. Last time I checked they were cheap enough I could just keep rebuying them once they can out of uses. (Ammo...) If nothing else, you can not fire it, just wave it around.

I happen to think that Retro blaster rifle is really cool looking, though. It's what I use.