Liquid

I've got a demofile of a 40 minute nucleus fight somewhere. I recorded it with the intent of sending it to the devs to show them how horribly laggy it was, but there was one problem:

It plays in 30 seconds.

The new one is so much better.

And to complete the story, CO "ripped it off" it from DCUO's videos.

Which I think is fine-- nobody owns the idea of a travel power that's halfway between super speed and super jump.

Agreed. I can't stand powers that cause detoggles. I'd prefer to see something like suppressing those toggles for 15 seconds or something.

I don't object to the added difficulty, I object to the annoyance factor-- it feels like they are attacking my user interface, not my character.

It's not just the robe. I've got that on a Tights with Skin costume, and they are behind the arms like that as well.

I'd like to add that fun for some involves making characters with specific concepts. This may mean that, like Havok or Cyclops, their Energy Blaster cannot fly.

You may not have intended to imply this, but if someone doesn't have hover on their Energy Blaster, that doesn't make them an unintelligent player.

I haven't chosen to totally sacrifice. Bone Smasher is a great power.

Interesting.

I'm not sure we actually disagree on how disruptive it can be, I think we disagree on whether the ragdoll mitigation makes up for it. But regardless, I'll agree to disagree if you want to end the discussion.

Yeah, I reread that and I think I misunderstood you. I guess I think the difference is that people have someone other than themselves to blame if it's caused by knockback.

FYI, I brought up a single example of a second situation that can pop up as well as the SD issue, and then mentioned some more powers. I'm not sure where you got "Teams with KB mean I never get SD off except on one or two guys." from. But it wasn't me.

My point is, it's not just one power, or one player. AoE KB can disrupt multiple peoples powers, multiple times in a single mission. Expecting the AoE KBer to anticipate every situation where that might happen is unrealistic. I am going to have times where Explosive Blast knocks guys out of an area before some AoE is executed, because I'm not psychic.

No. Again, I just want to use powers I love without getting complaints even though I know what I'm doing and am not endangering the group.

Also, I'd like to play a superhero game where Knockback is not so reviled, because it's a staple of the genre, and I love it, but I think that would take an overhaul to this game that the devs would not want to do.

I want to point out that you're basically implying that one guy's powers take precedence over two. This is why I dropped Energy Torrent. My fun doesn't take precedence over the rest of the team. I'm just one person, there will usually be 2-4 people on the team who have AoE effects that I'll disrupt enough to annoy them.

This is the third time I've seen it implied that the spawn will be annihilated in such a short time, and therefore KB isn't a problem. I don't get complaints about KB if spawns go down that fast.

Sorry, I disagree. I think the game is not designed to allow mob scatter to be beneficial. And I think it should have been designed so that it was (but it's too late now).

That depends on your difficulty settings. If getting more of the right kind of inspirations isn't an issue, then yeah, AoE KB technically isn't going to be a problem for that DA Tanker/Scrapper/Brute. It will only bother them if they just don't like having a teammate make DA miss regardless of the end result, or if it annoys them to have to ask for inspirations because of the actions of a teammate.

Yeah, I know people like that. And they're cool people, they just might have a different idea of what is fun or annoying than you.

So, out of curiosity, what do you do to deal with those mentioned AoE Immobs that have -KB?

Sure, using powers improperly is using powers improperly. But some powers are considered "used impropely" in more situations than others. I can use Fire Breath, Frost Breath, Fistful of Arrows, and Psychic Shockwave *whenever I want to* and nobody complains as long as I don't draw more aggro than necessary. This is very much not the case with Energy Torrent.

I want to make it clear that I was talking about Energy Torrent, and not Nova. Yeah, nuking the spawn is something I've never heard a complaint about unless the Blaster was so much lower than the mobs that it didn't do any damage (which isn't an issue anymore with Super Sidekicking!).

Cool. Really, this is the only thing you had to say here, because I think I now understand your position, which basically seems to be "Yeah, it's not better in that situation, but I don't think it's that big of a deal, just roll with it and make the most of it".

Unfortunately, I feel the need to respond to the rest anyway, because I want to answer your questions and clarify some issues.

Well, the bulk aren't stunned-- it only works on minions. They probably aren't feared either (I don't know many DAs that don't use Death Shroud), just acc debuffed. Yeah, it often is from the previous fight, but most people think "I'll get my health back from Dark Regen in the next fight", because they want to keep moving. I don't think it's reasonable to expect people to always do whatever it takes to cap health off before each spawn.

Energy Torrent tends to spread them out unless you happen to be standing in a corner. Obviously some will shortly be affected by the auras, but some won't.

Unless he decides to retreat, which was your other suggestion.

I didn't explain this well, and for that I apologize. The Tanker (or whoever) is going to hit the red after a volley of attacks. If the Blaster (or whoever) then KBs them, those attacks are likely recharging. The KB doesn't provide *any* mitigation against recharging attacks, just ones that are ready to be used (or close to ready).

I'm not excluding Dark Regen, though, I'm mentioning everything in combination. It's all being used. No, the KB doesn't cancel it all, but it only replaces some of a larger amount of mitigation that DA provides.

I don't want you to think I skipped this-- I appreciate this attitude. I wish more people had it.

I keep inspirations for dealing with tough encounters, myself, not for making up for teammates that cancel out my defensive powers. Sure, it happens, and I'll use them for that. But if you've had a tough mission, and the DA Tanker uses their last two heal insps because the Blaster negated their Dark Regen, and they don't have those heal insps for the next fight when there's one more Boss than they can otherwise handle, yeah, that's a significant negative effect. I don't see how it's laughable.


True, but some people like to make use of power queuing, and expect at least most of the foes near them to still be there when it goes off.

On it's own, I agree. I just think the predictability of KD outweighs the increased mitigation of ragdoll in most situations.

An example of a situation where it does not-- last night I was playing a Fire Blaster with a Sonic Blaster teammate that had Shockwave, and it saved our bacon a ton. I have no doubt that KD wouldn't have. However, neither of us had any powers that were significantly disrupted by the KB, as we were both Blasters. These situations don't occur very often for me.

In case you think I'm railing against dastardly KBers, I want to let you know that's not the case. I want to use Energy Torrent, Explosive Blast, Shockwave (the Claws one), and Wormhole without upsetting my teammates. These are some of my favorite powers. I've (sadly) respecced out of the first 3, and I just don't play my Grav controller anymore, because I care more about teaming with my friends and making sure they have fun, than making sure I can use the powers I want to use whenever I want to.

It's great that you have the attitude that you don't mind other people disrupting your powers. It's too bad that everyone doesn't feel that way, but I don't think they're being unreasonable, either.

I disagree very strongly that the KB is close to being as beneficial as getting Dark Regen off.

First, KB doesn't cancel powers. When the enemies get back up, they're still going to attack, just 2 seconds later, and outside of the DA's toggle stun or debuff.

Second, we have limited inspiration space. It will likely take 2 inspirations to restore the same amount of health as Dark Regen. So, not only have you rendered a power useless (something people don't like), you've made them use inspirations they otherwise wouldn't have used, and there's no guarantee that those exact inspirations will be replenished by the time they otherwise would have needed them.

Third, that's just one situation. You also have the other characters and their issues to worry about, and Soul Drain and Dark Consumption being in the same situation.

In my experience, if you use anything but AoE KB, everyone would be better off in most situations. Especially if you had KD instead of KB, because you'd still provide mitigation without disrupting their powers.

It's not that simple though. A Dark Melee/Dark Armor Brute, Scrapper, or Tanker has 3 powers that are PBAoE, that will be wasted by poorly timed knockback. Is the Blaster/Corruptor supposed to be able to anticipate when they will use any of these three powers?

Let's say you see the Scrapper/Brute/Tanker get into the low yellow or red on their health after jumping into a spawn, you think "I'll save you!" and use Energy Torrent (or a similar power) to knock the bad guys away from them. Now, the Scrapper/Tanker/Brute isn't an idiot-- they knew they were low in health, and triggered Dark Regen right at the time they needed it. But, you activated Energy Torrent a fraction of a second earlier and just KBed all their targets away, they waste the Dark Regen, and the mobs are out of Aura of Fear or Oppressive Gloom. You just made the situation more dangerous for that character.

Sure, maybe you two work it out, but not only does that character have 2 other powers like that to deal with, but there are more people on the team than just him or her. So you have to worry about Jim's Sleet, and Suzie's Cinders, and Jack's Foot Stomp/RttC or Invincibility, etc. Eventually, you may come to the realization that in most cases, it's just not worth using Energy Torrent most of the time, in most teams.

That's why my Energy Blaster no longer has Energy Torrent: it's the most fun to use against large groups of foes, which most often is on a team, during which time it is most often not a good time to be using Energy Torrent. I took Bone Smasher instead, and found it to be a much better investment. Meanwhile, my Fire Blaster and Corruptor use Fire Breath, my AR Blaster and Corruptor use Flamethrower, my Crab Spiders use Suppression, my Wolf Spider uses Heavy Burst, my Peacebringer uses both Scatters, my Sonic Blaster uses Howl, and my Psi Dom uses Psychic Scream, all without their secondary effects disrupting any of my teammates' powers. I've also got a Tanker that will be using Energy Torrent without disrupting their powers either, in about 7 levels.

The problem isn't actually the KB, though. It's all the other AoE powers. But I think it's too late to make this game not be AoE centric. I hope they address this if/when they make CoH2.

Why is that, anyway?

I could play my Grav again if it was in the Immob, because my teammates would stop complaining about Wormhole if I used the Immob first. Putting it in the hold makes it useless.

I know, that Council symbol totally makes him look bad. Stick the 5th Column symbol back on that sucker!

Hey UnSub, why do you think those rare, desirable items are cheaper Villainside?

Not only that, but the good stuff is, for the most part, more expensive Villainside.

Smurphy posted this in this thread:



It's really bad below level 50. Villains have a horrible supply of pre-50 items.

It's been like this for a long time. The notion that Villains will suffer from a merger boggles my mind after playing both sides, and being able to outfit my heroes for less, and in less time.

Sorry for the Thread Necro, but I wanted to tell everyone that on the qualifying test for the Trivia contest at HeroCon there was this question:

So, unless C was actually the answer (does anyone else remember what C was?) then Schadenfreude is the Axis America version of Nosferatu! Hurrah! Thank you again, Horatio (or Hero 1, or whoever it was that made this decision)!

I'd like you to play my arc, Death for Dollars! (ID: 1050).

Hopefully, you will get the bug with non-spawning objectives that people intermittently get, and help me figure out what is causing it.

So did I! (Well, I got one yesterday for one I made on the 12th.)

Did you get a comment? Mine was apparently for making two posts in a row, which I wasn't aware was a faux pas, unless both posts were responding to the same post.