Lemur Lad

Claws has one PBAoE, and 2 Melee cones. Since the change in base melee range, Cones are no longer a joke in terms of AoE. Not to mention that Shockwave has a 30ft range, not just 7.

So 3 AoEs total, opposed to MA's one.

Divine Avalanche and Parry boost Melee and Lethal defense. Typed damage defenses don't matter what position the attack comes from, and most bullet attacks as well as a lot of spines, knives, arrows, and other ranged attacks.

Please learn how powersets work.

FYI, things disappearing has nothing to do with someone's rig. It's a hard coded limit on the server side as to how many objects can be sent at one time. It's part of the reason the zone cap was lowered.

I'm going to focus on understanding the game. The issues with movement can sort themselves out pretty easily. Just remind yourself that as long as she's having fun, it doesn't matter if she's as efficient as you are. Hand-eye coordination is a very personal thing. My girlfriend ends up being almost totally a 1 hand mostly mouse player, because for her and her cat, computer time= cuddle time (I wouldn't have it any other way).

As for info, you will end up much happier if you accept that she's going to rely on your for the info. She may not like looking things up just for a game, she may just want to do it to talk to you. However there are two things to remember:

1) Avoid lecturing (in tone if not intent)- it's really hard for me being the son of a teacher and also being familiar with almost every aspect of the game, but you have to have a careful eye for how much info is too much. Sometimes she'll want a simple answer, sometimes she'll want to understand more fully. If she asks something you don't know, look it up together.
2) Don't get frustrated repeating things- Under normal circumstances, I don't like repeating myself. However in terms of some things about the game, I've come to understand it's just better to get over that about myself. One main thing is how to get from one zone to another. I've had 4 years to get used to the layout and understand how the city and isles fit together. I have a mental map and strong spatial awareness. My girlfriend is very smart, but not when it comes to fantasy maps and the easiest way from one place to another. So I remember that and when we're on a team, or even just the two of us, I'll slip her a tell with a little reminder nudge about where's easiest ('you can go to our base' or 'Pocket D works for that')

The key is, remember she's your girlfriend, not just someone you play with. Like I said, my girlfriend is very smart, but it takes some effort on my part to be sure she knows that I don't for a second think that "not smart about the game" doesn't equate to "not smart period" I'd never think that, however I have to be aware that I can be a real punk if I'm not careful.

The game can be a huge source of fun as a couple. I played WoW for 6months because being there with my girlfriend made it fun. She plays CoH for some of the same reasons. It's not her favorite game, but we love spending time together, and this game lets us pick it up, put it down, and have fun without the stress of guilds and raids and endgame grind.

I wish you good luck in making this work out with your girlfriend. It's worth it.

You have to remember, the best ways to get experience is in missions, and probably always will be. People in missions don't show up when you search a zone.

It's nice to see people standing about, but when you don't that doesn't mean the game is dead. The advice people gave about Global Channels is good. So is making Global Friends with people you like, so you can see them even on other characters. That will help you find people to play with even if you have to character hop.

TF participation is up because of the changes to AE and xp scaling of foes, as well as the changes to Exemplaring and Super Sidekicking.

On the whole, the lack of challenge is the one drawback people are bothered by. The logic goes, it's not exciting and you could get faster xp elsewhere, but you might as well do it and get Merits, and chill out and have fun.

Final note, the Difficulty Slider will be back. They just need time to engineer the solution.

No. Difficulty settings currently have no effect on TF/SF/Trials, as you were told. Everything will be as if you were +0/x1 (or the size of your current team).

This was done for two main reasons:

setting TFs for -1 level meant they could be bum rushed for easier Merits. To head off a bunch of people taking advantage and skewing the data for Merit Rewards, they disabled it until they could put in a more robust solution.

setting TFs at -1 in order to more easily obtain "Master of" badges was... backwards? unintentional? They don't expect you to do it on hardest settings, but negating most of the challenge kind of defeats the purpose of awarding a badge as proof of your Mastery.

Thanks everyone. It was just a thumbnail sketch based on my experiences, but I'll consider fleshing it out into a full guide sometime.

Just by the way, Bill Z has a good guide on setting up the Test Server, but I don't have time to go hunting for it today.

Very inspiring to the folks who lived and worked in KR and knew Cyrus. He was part of their daily lives much more as Cyrus than as Breakneck, and that's who the statue is for.

Gonna disagree with this specifically. Flying, healing, maintaining bubbles, firing ranged attacks may be fun. But did you ever bring a Scrapper with no ranged attacks to the old raid? Ever bring a non granite Tanker? Simple truth is, old Hami needed 4 specific Powersets spread among 8-12 people. Everyone else was dead weight. A raid where everyone has a different job, and those jobs are specifically tailored to the strengths of their ATs, is somehow worse in your estimation?

In the old raid, I was the tool being used. In the new raid, I'm a participant.

"Oil Slick? WTF?!?!"

So anyway, I've always been in favor of the new raid. It isn't perfect, but it's far more interesting. There are a few points brought up by Zek I'd like to address.

Workload vs Funload- The old Hami Raids you describe are the ones done after all the extensive strategizing to come up with a final method. The new Hami Raids you describe are ones done by somewhat inexperienced groups who aren't always familiar with their roles. Learning takes time. I'm sure when you learned to drive, you couldn't divide focus on listening to the radio or talking to other people easily. Same with a Hami Raid. Once people are familiar, it becomes habit, and it's a lot easier to chill out and have fun with it.

Population Limit- I don't agree that having "only" 50 people is what is minimizing the fun of raids. Realistically, a human can only pay effective attention to a dozen or so people at a time anyway. 6+ full teams of people is a lot. 50 people would be a rocking party in the real world.

Solutions to make the raid better- When Hami was the only raid in the game, BaB told me there wasn't much chance they would work on creating a Raid Control system to better manage several teams, and control the population of a raid zone so that when people drop, they can get back in without missing out on the chance to be part of the finale. Now that we have Hami, Rikti Ship, Banner events, and more to come, I think that is an issue that should be revisited. Being able to control things a little more smoothly would go a long way to making the few remaining sources of angst in raiding go away. I don't think more people is the best answer.

I'm not berating anyone. Don't put words or tone in where there isn't any. I was simply explaining the most efficient way to get the message heard by the people who can do something about it. As someone very familiar with these forums, I was giving advice on how to best achieve the changes they want, without injecting needless drama into the mix.

Even though I disagree with the need, I respect their right to bring the matter up to the people who can do something about it. I was simply pointing out that bringing it up to the players at large, accomplishes little or nothing.

Since everything we've been told says GR will be out before the end of June, I disagree with your timing. Expect beta in February or March, and GR 2months or so after.

I think you're overreacting quite a bit.

I'm with Sam on this one. I have more fun chatting with my closest server friends in Global Channels anytime. I don't need to have a lagged out raid gathering just to chatter. New raid with peeps who know the drill is short, to the point, and above all, participatory.

Not a bug

I think I may just make a full suite of characters on a new server just to do this.

It's not antagonism, it's pointing out bad argumentation. It doesn't lend any credence to your case to assume you speak for other people, even when you know other people agree with you. It's also irrelevant to making the point.

I could care less who you think everyone is or who the OP thinks everyone is. When dealing with matters of the playerbase, I can guarantee you that no matter what you propose/state/argue, there will be someone who doesn't feel the same way. The only way to avoid that is to speak for yourself.

Trying to rally support or a mass of players who agree with you in this case makes zero difference about whether the Community team is able or willing to address the issue. Either they will, or they won't. However I know for a fact that making a clear statement of what's bothering you without getting bogged down in unprovable rhetoric will get you a lot closer to a resolution than either

A) inflating the magnitude of the problem
B) inflating the number of people who are bothered by the issue

I posted what I did, because when it comes to forum issues, a direct PM to the Moderators is flat out the simplest and most effective way to get things done. Posting about it is just talking to a bunch of people who can't do anything to resolve the issue.

If you think I was attacking someone personally, I'll say that you're being oversensitive (oversensitive on someone else's behalf no less), and leave it at that.

Have they ever removed something just because they added another way to do it?