Oedipus_Tex

One last one. Sorry to overload you all. Been trying to figure out how to rotate the camera for months and now that I can I'm a zealot.

This is my one and only Scrapper, Joan of Arkansas.

This is fun. Here's another, with terrible lighting and half hearted photoshopping. (Getting an actual screenshot of enemies flying off screen while posing under the Atlas statue proved impossible.) This one is a bit juvenile... but so is the concept.

Here's another. This guy is "Jazz Funeral," my Sonic/Dark Defender. I have never publicly stated much about his background (not even that "it's a mystery"). I don't play this character often but can't bring myself to delete him.

Patience is a virtue dears.

I just recently figured out how to rotate the camera without a mouse, so I was able to submit something. The Photoshop work is kind of shoddy (again, no mouse) but I wanted to put something together quick. Here is "The Cold Reader."

This isn't specific to slows, but it explains how -Recharge works:

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=218111

Well again I'm on the fence about this issue. However I'm not going to lie. I have a character at level 40 or so with endurance usage that's irritating enough to make him unejoyable for me to mess with. Some might see that as a "challenge" but to me its just annoying. And that's just the way I look at it: the endurance issue isn't so much a game goal or challange as it a luck of the draw on how you combine powersets. Sometimes two sets that seem like they'd work ok together turn out to combine poorly because the endurance bar doesn't like that combo. Other times you get a character that can perform endlessly without ever needing to look at the bar. The fact that the former character and the latter both perform about the same, barring the disappearing blue bar part, is IMO more irritating than it is a call to action.

In this case, the character is a Fire/Sonic Controller. I do unmothball him on rare ocassions, but then remember that my other trollers do better jobs with less annoyance and back into the bin he goes. Managing endurance / spell points / MP may be a valid challenge in a game with fixed classes, but in a game that encourages you to mix powersets it's more of a "don't play this" flag.

Again, not that I think endurance should be eliminated completely. But I think in COH2 they should think very deeplly about endurance is really intended to do, and whether every single ability really needs an attached cost.

Well I am a huge fan of this game so I say this with care. But, I would have put just about every AV and GM fight in City of Heroes collectively on the list of dumb boss fights. This game has a lot going for it but boss encounters are not one of them.

AVs are basically balls of HP with exactly four weaknesses (-Regen, -Damage, -Resistance, and incredibly stupid AI). The recipe never changes, so if your character specializes in -Recharge, -Endurance, -ToHit, Knockback/down/up, et al you basically completely fail while characters with abilities AVs don't resist wipe the floor and can even solo. Things are really bad when a team of 8 can struggle to reproduce what a single character could do if it has the "magic" ingredients. The fact that every single AV has the exact same vulnerabilites tips the scale to the point that AVs are less of a boss fight than the "you did bring a Phoenix Down, didn't you?" type of thing the linked article talks about.

Asking because they don't benefit from +Recharge. If a pet gets hit with an Ice or Psy attack do they suffer the effect? The reason +Recharge was taken out was to fix their AI, but it seems like -Recharge would have the same issue.

Another question. If you put Speed Boost on a pet (+50% Recharge normally), and it then gets hit by a -50% Recharge power is its current Recharge bonus 0% or -50%?

Hmm. Well I have varied opinions on this. But my main question lately is whether in CoH2 the concept of "endurance" shouldn't be dropped entirely. It's main function in CoH1 is highly questionable. If it was intended to slow us down its failed at it. The cost of running toggles seems to have been calibrated to hit the endurance bar, and the chief player response to that is simply to build characters so that endurance is ignorable. Meanwhile the existence of endurance makes some builds nearly unplayable until higher levels. Not saying we should change it in COH1, but whatever endurance was meant to do, it doesn't do it.

I think it depends on what kind of content you're doing. Most of the official content is pretty easy overall and you can get by--although I still find mitigation useful.

Where all bets are off are if you decide to enter the gauntlet known as AE story missions. Lately I've been trying to play them whenever I can find a team willing to go with me. It's hard to find people willing to do it but I find it fun as hell when I do. I am considering founding a group to run them on a regular basis since I have zero interest in soloing in this game.

Some of the challenges you face in the AE are completely unlike what you face in the main game, and highlight skills that the main game doesn't focus on. Ice Control, for example, is very good at dealing with hidden opponents (Arctic Air both slows them from getting to you and reveals their hiding spot before they do).

I was in a mission earlier today that featured two types of Lts, one with Storm Summoning and the other with Force Field powers. That may not set off your alarms immediately but what it means is that if both types appeared in one group they all had protection from Confuse, Hold, Immobolize, and Stun, in addition to added Defense from the the big bubbles + Steamy Mist. Then there were the Shield Defense bosses from hell who could hit me for over 800 damage per shot who had their native mezz defense that isn't a toggle, so you can't de-tog it. Luckily I was on a Mind troller at the time and had sleep and fear to work with and powers that cut through Force Fields. A Fire or Plant troller would have been completely shut down by that style of mission because they lack flexibility.

So in all, uh, I guess the answer is "it depends." For HARD content (as opposed to "official" content, which tends to be easy-ish), I think a high Control set really is a useful choice.

I agree about the animations. I have a Broadsword/Fire Scrapper with those powersets simply because it had to be (the character is named "Joan of Arkansas.") The animations do look rather dated and its the main thing that keeps me from using that character despite liking the concept.

IMO Fire/Rad is probably technically "better." Ice/Rad is good but what I'd tend to recommend to people who team a lot, are experienced with the game, and want to try something weird and interesting. There's nothing like it anywhere else in this game. Or really in any game I've played.

It's expensive-ish but someone recently suggested placing the purple Ragnorak: Chance for Knockdown proc in the Crushing Field. That proc has a 20% chance to knockdown. If you were to get Crushing Field down to 4 second recharge time and spam the heck out of that power it could be very nice mitigatton.

(Come to think of it that would be a fantasic fix for Gravity as a whole if they simply added a chance for knockdown to this power, and not a huge violation of the cottage rule. The power already comes later than "standard" Controller AoE immobs, and Gravity sure does need the help.)

Just a musing.

For a long time I've looked at characters in terms of their performance at max level. In most games that would be a valid way to do it. In this game however, mechanics make it so that we're frequently cut off from our top level abilities. As of Issue 16 and the ability to gain experience when exemp'ed, I'm now beginning to seriously question the old wisdom. The number of tasks to perform at 50 pales in comparison to things that must be done at lower levels. Performance at 50 is still important, but as of changes in the past year I'm now begining to think that how well a character exemps carries a lot more weight than in the past.

Thoughts?

Mind/Cold is my favorite character. Your mileage may vary. I think sometimes we just find a combo that does everything we wanted out of the game. That was Mind/Cold for me.

Essentially I play the character as something I call a "pre-tank." I use Super Speed and Arctic Air to rush in invisibly ahead of the team and Confuse any troublesome enemies. I keep the group slept so they won't kill each other while I'm setting up the fight. When the team arrives and fires their AoEs into the sleeping crowd, the confused enemies launch their alphas on each other. I use my AoE fears and such to add a little more safety for the group, buff and debuff as necessary, and then take off toward the next group when about 80% of the current group is handled. That way when the team gets to the next group it's basically a guilt free kill fest. Because of Heat Loss I can run Super Speed indefinitely. This keeps me invisible, and lets me rocket to the next group easily.

I think Plant Control is a fantastic set but it plays completely differently than Mind. As good as Seeds of Confusion is, the combo of an aggro-less single target confuse and an aggro-less AoE confuse is really outrageous. A lot of people try to play it using a "brute force" method and it's just not ideal for that. Mind Control's advantage is you can set up the battle field before enemies even know you are there. It's not the fastest but there is no reason you should EVER die unless you are just impatient.

Mind/Trick Arrow is fine btw but having two holds is kind of wasted. The trick with Mind Control is to disable the bosses from afar with a Confuse before starting the fight. When that's not possible, the pattern to use is Dominate > Levitate > Dominate. Dominate has no knockback (or knockup) protection, so you can stack a hold very easily using this pattern.

Someone mentioned Mind/Kin and I should warn that is not a combo I think I'd enjoy. Mind is a very clicky set. I find it works best (or at least is not as frustrating) with sets that have long duration/recharges. Storm, Cold, Radiation, are all top picks for me. But I think anything would work.

The powers I skipped on my Ice/Rad were Chillblain, Flash Freeze, and Fallout.

Arctic Air is not really replaceable by Shiver IMO. They both have -Recharge but the similarities end there. It's a matter of opinion, but I have always felt Ice Controllers who skip Arctic Air are missing out. Doubly so with Ice/Rad, who gets two PBAoE controls.

Lingering Radiation and Shiver do have more overlap. If I had to take just one it would be Lingering Rad, because it has -Regen, a better shape (spherical rather than a cone) and lasts longer (30 seconds vs 18 seconds). It takes some work to get it perma. Note that on my Ice/Rad troller, though, I actually have both Ling Rad and Shiver. I find it useful flooring Recharge over a huge area and for hammering AVs with stacked -Recharge.

Keep in mind this will be a low damage build. This character specializes in being a rolling cloud of debuff and lockdown.

Mind Control. Not the best AoE damager, certainly not a farmer, but a very steady set that handles bosses (not AVs) easily and is incredibly capable in the early levels. There is a slight delay in your development of strong AoEs. A lot of people criticize the set because Seeds of Confusion is so good, but Mind gets its strength from the sheer volume of options it offers rather than from one particular power. Fully built you will have one or more AoE control that is always ready, and also a throw-away AoE sleep you can use every 15 seconds or so just to keep enemies on their toes.

I like the Mind APP best for Ice/Rad. Getting mezzed is one your one major weakness. You have 4 offensive toggles that all instantly drop. Plus the -Recharge in the Mind powers stack with your Ice powers. You'll generally be over the -Recharge cap for regular enemies but it takes huge amounts of -Recharge to affect an AV. You need -333% Recharge to get a same level, level 50 AV down to -50% Recharge, which doubles their recharge times.