Monkey_King

Two, or even three teams ought to be able to get a badge out of a giant monster, since you only have to do a certain percentage of damage to get the badge (memory's fuzzy, is it 33%?)

That said, this would explain why Deathsurge may as well have a big sign over his head that says "Not under level 20". A big group of us tried to take him on, and even with my Poison debuffs we couldn't even scratch him. And a couple nights before, when I was lackeyed to a 27 villain, he was a piece of cake.

BTW, giant monster XP scaling is broken too. Some people get XP, but my level 26 self didn't get a thing when I helped beat him. No badge, either.

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Please play with it on Training Room to see if your Masterminds have become TOO powerful.

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The thing is, how exactly will I know if I'm too powerful? I'm honestly not sure what the baseline is, with Masterminds. It's totally random how quickly my robots can pulp a boss; it takes longer and my bots get trashed if they don't do much knockback to keep the boss at arm's length, but if they and I can keep the boss on his back, it's an easy fight.

City of Villains is much more streamlined than CoH. Starting with Striga, they could put mission doors in neighborhoods that are actually your level, instead of, say, sending you clear across Atlas Park over into the level 6 part of town for your first mission. There's a lot less running back and forth, and between zones (I like how Mercy is almost a mini-zone unto itself).

That said, I whole-heartedly agree. We need at least one other track to follow. If nothing else, something like Galaxy City - a starting zone that nobody uses so we can avoid the crowds and power flexing.

Manticore, it's worth pointing out that story arcs are not working as intended. You're supposed to be able to finish them out, like in City of Heroes, but that's not the case. I was in the middle of Billy Heck's second story arc (versus the Hellions), and I dinged level 11 in the middle. He immediately dumped me, and won't let me continue. I would at least like to see what happens in the end.

Malefacting down to get missed badges, that I can deal with. Somebody will always be doing Mr. Bocor's missions, and it's a good way to rack up Infamy and Prestige. I had a character in CoH who predates badges, who had to go back for Negotiator, too. But will this also allow us to do story arcs and pick up the souveniers? Even though nobody else can see them, I like to pop open my window and see a big long list of junk I've collected - makes me feel like I've accomplished things.

Or for that matter! As currently built, the Facemaker mission is unfairly designed, as the Facemaker spawns like 50 feet from the door, making it nearly impossible to stop her from escaping. Any change malefacting down will give us a "second shot" at such missions?

It may be the devs' intent that it be impossible for one villain to see every story arc in one go. That whole thing about having more content than you can possibly see. The thing is, it's kind of silly for a contact to abruptly dump you in the middle of a story arc. Last I heard from Billy Heck, 3K Kelvin was coming from Paragon City - and suddenly he doesn't care any more.

If this isn't a bug, it's a crappy way to design things. I was used to being able to finish out story arcs, outleveled or not, and it not only doesn't make sense, but is kind of unfair to abruptly end them. It's essentially penalizing the player for gaining levels.

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Thanks for the replies all, here is my build up to 8 as requested:

Archetype: Brute
Primary Powers - Ranged : Super Strength
Secondary Powers - Support : Fiery Aura

01 : Fire Shield damres(01) damres(5)
01 : Punch dam(01) dam(3) acc(7)
02 : Haymaker dam(02) dam(3) acc(5)
04 : Blazing Aura dam(04) dam(7)
06 : Healing Flames recred(06)
08 : Knockout Blow recred(08)

Slotting might be SLIGHTLY off, I didn't go in game to check, have to get ready for work.

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As everyone else has noted, I can tell you right off the bat that your problems stem from a lack of Jab. It's not too late for you; pick it up at 10. Conventional Tanker wisdom says to ignore/skip Jab, but Brutes are not Tankers. In fact you need both Jab and Brawl. Jab and Brawl your way to about 1/3 Fury before throwing in Punch and Haymaker, and then the SMASH can begin.

There is nothing wrong with Brute soloability. In beta I ran the cape mission at 21 with no enhancements, and though it was slow going for obvious reasons I was able to handle about two spawns before needing a rest. It's all about your SMASHING strategy.

I got my box in-store, at EB Games. I'm missing Ghost Widow too. The way things were arranged in there, I'm honestly not sure she'd have fit.

Actually, I'm kind of relieved that it's a widespread shipping snafu, and not just my box. I have to walk a fair distance to the store, and I wasn't looking forward to having to hoof it down there again to swap boxes. I left everything as it was, but I guess now I can go ahead and open everything, yay!

Well, here's a fair question to go along with this, then. Are us villains also going to have a human-controlled Lord Recluse at your backs? Seems unthinkable that he'd just sit up in his ivory tower while Statesman himself is invading his island. There's a time for sending in your expendible minions to do your dirty work, and there's a time to step in and make sure things are done right yourself.

It may not be intentional, but females currently have access to the military uniform and biker jacket from City of Villains.

From what I've gathered, the 5th Column was entirely separate from Arachnos. Then the Council split off from Arachnos, and subsequently took over the 5th Column.

Insufficient. An endurance discount is of no use to Blasters if they're unable to down an enemy before they're killed. I reiterate, a Blaster's defense is the ability to destroy an enemy before his own lack of defenses becomes a liability. You designed the AT this way. With ED, blasters can not max out their damage-dealing capabilities.

If a Blaster were capable of digging in for a long battle, an endurance discount would be great. Less damage, but enough endurance to see the battle through to the end. Problem is, the enemy will destroy the Blaster in that time because he has no defenses.

Likewise, this does little to mitigate the fact that Tankers can't stay in the fight nearly as long as they used to. Tankers more than anyone else can sure use the endurance discount, as many toggles as they have to run, but it's of diminished value since they can't dig in for the long haul like they used to, either. You can't stretch out a fight while you're being shot to pieces.

Your hearts are in the right places, but no. An endurance discount does not make it all better. We are still dead meat.

A couple comments from the Blaster perspective:

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Quality of Life: Now that rez effects give XP debt protection, is it possible to rethink the rez confirmation process? This can be removed entirely, or made an option, as with team gifts and team teleports. (Rigel_Kent)

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Yes, can you please change this? I've personally never been in a situation where I didn't want the rez, since people are usually pretty smart about when to use them (really, only rez inspirations are unsafe to use in combat). Plus, I hate how the confirmation breaks all the rez animations. At least add the option to auto-accept ressurections, like team gifts and teleports?

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Quality of Life: Detention Field's graphic needs to be more obvious -- currently teammates can't tell when an enemy is detained and waste attacks on it.

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Heartily seconded. I'm not even sure there IS a graphic. I was bailing someone out at a Troll rave the other day, and went through three blasts before I noticed 'Unaffected' floating up from my target. He'd thrown a Detention Field around the Supa Troll to save himself, and I absolutely couldn't tell until actually shooting the guy.

Paladin rare? I see him up quite a bit. You guys must just be passing through the zone at the wrong times, much like it took me months to get my Devilfish badge. Jurassik I just got lucky with, was hunting out there when somebody spotted him.

Adamastor, HIM I'm not sure about. I'm in Dark Astoria all the time, checking all the spawn points, and nothing.

Anyways, thanks a lot Positron. Looks like I'll have to wait a little longer yet to get my Believer badge, but I've still got a bunch of other Croatoa badges to work on in the meanwhile.

The toxic resist is in Hoarfrost and Earth's Embrace because that's where they put the toxic resistance in all the tanker sets: the HP boosting power. It seems just as wierd in Healing Flame, and Dull Pain for that matter, but for a lot of sets where would you put it?

So, where will the new Defiance start? I'd like to see it start kicking in at the same time as a blaster's panic instincts do - when the bar turns yellow. Glad to hear you're revising that bar, too. The redundant power boost sounds interesting as well.

Without going on a long tangent about people's tactics, suffice to say that I haven't noticed any loss of survivablility on Test - quite the opposite in fact. Hold your ground, devs!

I was trying to keep this short to save you a little work, but as it turns out I have three for the story guy.

1. Positron or Statesman (I forget which) said that, they'd like for there to be so much content that you could never see it all with one character, thus the additions of the Hollows and Striga. In this same vein, are there any plans to add in any new story arcs? It would be kind of neat if each character wound up seeing different story arcs.

2. The Rikti invasion at the end of beta was pretty neat. I'm sure you can't say anything specific, but are there any plans at all to use the Rikti invasion event in the real game? Or were the flying saucers there just to see if you could?

3. Just a storyline confirmation. The Undefeated badge marks the spot where the hero Scirocco died during the Rikti invasion. I remember reading somewhere that Scirocco is always reincarnated, alternately as a hero or a villain. So, the hero Scirocco died, and then was reborn as the villain Scirocco who's in City of Villains?

Well, I can't kick. Defiance comes at no cost. It's really not much of a boost, but it's free, so I can't say it's a bad thing at all.

Practical? That's more debateable. 40% HP is when all ATs really begin to sweat, blasters moreso. The HP boost helps quite a bit, but nevertheless when the HP bar is down at yellow, or even flashing red (where it has to be for Defiance to really matter), that's when a blaster should be contemplating escape, not trying to pour on the damage.

I think the damage scaling really ought to start a little higher - at least at 50% HP, even if it's a small boost. Again, nobody wants to be down that low. It's not until actually see the numbers in person that I realized that 20% HP is in the neighborhood of 200 HP - one shot away from death against a lt. I like Defiance, but it will be rare for blasters to want to go that low, so I don't think it's going to make a huge impact. But maybe it was only intended to be a small bonus?

It does not hurt blasters at all, having Defiance, and the option to gamble with our lives is an interesting one - but don't encourage it. Inexperienced players aren't going to know when to hold and when to fold, and encouraging them to fight at near death is just going to cause them to rack up even more debt. Foolish blasters are already enough of a pain to group with, pulling, mismanaging aggro, running ahead of the tanks and so forth. Let's not give them something else stupid to do.

Also, hate the way the bar scales. The 10% (+320% damage) boost only fills the bar up halfway, which is not at all intuitive. It should be more like 3/5 full, scaling according to how close you actually are to 500%.