Patteroast

Good point. I still think that the positives with knockback are usually completely ignored in favor of just drumming up its negatives, though. And it does have negatives. I'm just saying it has some positives, too.

A running theme with a lot of these is that they're either good powers that people generally don't know enough about, or they're powers that in the hands of a skilled player can be used to great advantage but in the hands of a poor player can cause problems. Knockbacks definitely fit into the latter category.

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Vote # 168
Defenders +
Corruptors -
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Blasters 27
Defenders 15
Tankers 45
Corruptors 7
Dominators 19
Masterminds 13
Stalkers 14

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Vote # 161
Defenders +
Corruptors -
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Blasters 28
Defenders 13
Tankers 42
Corruptors 8
Dominators 19
Masterminds 13
Stalkers 14
Widows 3

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Vote # 148
Defenders +
Corruptors -
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Blasters 27
Defenders 13
Tankers 42
Corruptors 8
Dominators 18
Masterminds 14
Stalkers 13
Widows 5

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Vote # 136
Stalkers + ASSASSIN'S STRIKE!
Warshades - (Sorry.)
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Blasters 24
Defenders 11
Tankers 43
War Shades 0
Corruptors 10
Dominators 18
Masterminds 13
Stalkers 14
Widows 7

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Vote # 94
Defenders +
Corruptors -
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Blasters 19
Defenders 13
Scrappers 12
Tankers 27
War Shades 8
Corruptors 8
Dominators 14
Masterminds 13
Stalkers 13
Widows 9
Soldiers 4

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Vote # 84
Defenders +
Corruptors -
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Blasters 18
Defenders 12
Scrappers 13
Tankers 25
War Shades 7
Corruptors 9
Dominators 13
Masterminds 13
Stalkers 14
Widows 9
Soldiers 7

Serum for Mercenaries. In combination with Noxious Gas on my Mercs/Poison, I can make my Commando run up to an AV and tank them while debuffing the crap out of 'em.

Never had it as a toggle, so I don't particularly care about that. I do know that as it stands right now, it's way more of a godmode power for Regen than (just one single brief) Moment of Glory. Not saying that I'm not glad they made MoG no longer a complete pile of suck. I just find that if things are heading downhill fast, Instant Healing does way more for me.

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Vote # 70
Stalkers +
Corruptors -
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Blasters 16
Defenders 11
Scrappers 11
Tankers 23
War Shades 8
Brutes 5
Corruptors 9
Dominators 13
Masterminds 13
Stalkers 13
Widows 10
Soldiers 8

Yeah, knockback in general is also unfairly demonized.

It can be an annoyance to some players and especially to melee archetypes, but it really is a good bit of mitigation. An enemy flying through the air and taking a while to pick themselves up is not attacking you. It takes a little attention to not overuse it, but used well it is quite awesome.

I took Jump Kick as a joke on one character, and I was surprised that it wasn't bad, as I'd assumed. Animation is a bit longish though, and I'm not sure what the strange puff of air effect after it's done is supposed to be.

I'd be surprised if any massive nerf or extra debuff added to Granite would go over very well with the playerbase, even if it came with significant buffs to the other armors in the set. I also don't think it's too likely that it'll be changed to a click with a crash in any theoretical rebalancing of the entire set, as the fact that it's a toggle is one of the powerset's unique selling points.

I agree that Stone Armor needs some work. One of my earliest and favorite characters is my Stone/Stone Tanker. I prefer to only dabble in IOs, so the debuffs are significant to my play despite taking Teleport even though it clashed with my backstory and having to slot up Swift a bunch.

Yeah, some builds can mitigate almost all of the debuffs... but then again, it's reasonably easy to mitigate crashes on other godmodes as well. When I'm playing Invuln, for example, I always try to have Dull Pain available if I think Unstoppable is going to drop while I'm still fighting, and I rarely have any issues. That doesn't even require investing in IOs...

In any case, I think the best thing that could be done to improve Stone Armor overall would be to make the non-Granite armors a more inviting option, within the bounds of reasonable balance. If that is judged to be too much, I can live with it how it is.

I soloed her on my Claws/Invuln Scrapper who is not anywhere near softcapped with Unstoppable and some inspirations. It was quite close, though... and only afterwards did I find the Tuatha that you can send to patrol. That would have been handy...

Still, I'm pleased to see some variety. Had fun ice skating circles around Agincourt.

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Vote # 65
Defenders +
Corruptors -
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Blasters 16
Defenders 11
Scrappers 9
Tankers 22
War Shades 8
Brutes 8
Corruptors 10
Dominators 13
Masterminds 13
Stalkers 12
Widows 10
Soldiers 8

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Vote # 13

+1 Stalkers
-1 Corruptors
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Blasters 10
Controllers 5
Defenders 10
Scrappers 13
Tankers 12
Peace Bringers 9
War Shades 10
Brutes 10
Corruptors 9
Dominators 11
Masterminds 12
Stalkers 10
Widows 10
Soldiers 9

I'm no expert on balance, but I feel that if the non-Granite armors were buffed up a bit and Rooted's slow and -jump were removed (I don't want to lose it's Regen, but I'd be happy if it only worked when on the ground like in Grounded), I think that the toggles being a bit better and not being slow would be balanced reasonably well against Granite, with its slow, -jump, -recharge, and -damage.

Granite really does have some serious penalties. I don't think it needs more. But I think that the pre-Granite game needs to be better, and doesn't particularly need the penalty that Rooted currently brings.

Instant Healing is awesome as it is now. I see now need at all to change it.

I think Sleeps in general are pretty underappreciated. In massive, messy AoE-fests they don't offer much, but on small teams, duos, and solo they are crazy powerful.

Eclipse is the kind of power that is so awesome it makes me worried it'll get nerfed. I really hope that never happens.

I never disliked self-rezzes as much as most people. I always pick them up and find them quite handy. And it sure is fun on my Dark Tanker to run into a group that is a bit more than I can handle, tank them until I die, and immediately get back up and continue tanking them. The stun from Soul Transfer usually means that what's left of the group is something that I now can handle.

I've found that Psychic Blast does a satisfying about of damage for Defenders. My FF/Psy is probably the most blastery Defender I have.

I just got my 72 month vet reward badge, and over that time I've gotten 13 level 50s out of 113 characters. They took...

7 months (Empathy/Electric Defender)
25 months (Claws/Invuln Scrapper)
16 1/2 months (Mercs/Poison Mastermind)
27 months (Stone/Stone Tanker)
34 months (Fire/Radiation Controller)
27 months (Ice/Ice Dominator)
33 months (Energy/Energy Stalker)
35 1/2 months (Warshade)
12 1/2 months (Stone/Willpower Brute) [Plus 6 months as Stone/Energy before I rerolled]
27 months (Earth/Sonic Controller)
42 1/2 months (Illusion/Trick Arrow Controller)
57 1/2 months (Spines/Regen Scrapper)
22 months (Night Widow)

Keep in mind I play pretty slowly over a ridiculous number of alts, and all those months of play on those various characters are overlapping... and in some cases, include up to six months of being ignored at a time. Because I just played whatever I felt like playing. From when I first got the game to my first level 50 took about 13 months for me (the 7-month Empathy Defender plus six months playing before I created them). The newest character I have that is closest to 50 is my 15-month-old level 41 Dark/Dark Tanker. On the other hand, I've been playing my level 19 Martial Arts/Invuln Scrapper for 68 months so far...

The rate at which I level depends on lots of variables... how often I play, how often my friends play, frequency of certain team-ups between characters, how much I like a certain character, how much a friend likes a character of theirs that my character always plays with, how good a character is at soloing, how good a character is at teaming, how often I can get a team on the server they're on, etc., etc...

Personally, I say just let it happen naturally. Play characters that are fun. If you want to play a lot of different characters, enjoy that. If you find you really like a certain character, play them a lot. If you want to get someone higher, a couple hours on good team and/or TF can get you a lot of bang for your buck.

I just want to mention that heals aren't useless in this game. In well-built, high-level encounters with good tactics, they're pretty much never used. But in less-than-perfect conditions they can be quite handy... say, a not entirely well-built pick up team, or a decent team trying to take on tougher enemies than they really should, or especially the low levels when nobody's that great yet.

Heals aren't bad. It's just that buffs and debuffs are good. Really, really good. Good enough to negate the need for healing. But heals can help patch holes in an imperfect team. Even so, I still agree... even if you're healing, you're not a healer. You're a Defender, Controller, Corruptor, or Mastermind, who has other support powers, attacks, controls, and pets to worry about as well. Try to get the most out of both of your powersets and you should be fine.

I generally only take one travel power (or in a couple cases of Kheldians and Kineticists, none), but I do have two characters who have or plan to have two travel powers. When I take one travel power and I don't have a specific conceptual reason, my default is super jump, simply because it's my favorite.

My Stone/Stone Tanker was the second character I ever made, and a lot of choices I made were based more on, "Ooh! What's this power like?" than sticking to a concept... in fact, I really only came up with a solid backstory for him much later. Anyway, I picked up Super Speed on him. And that's how it was. All the way to 50. I had some issues with not being able to get over knee-high walls when I had Granite on, but I managed. Eventually, I was messing around with a new build for him, and decided that I could drop a couple powers I never used to get Teleport. So that's what he has. Super Speed and Teleport.

I also have a character whose super speed is a result of his athleticism, so when I was going through my builds for I19 I said what the hell and threw super jump in there too.

A couple from Australia joined one of my SGs years back, and we got to be great friends online. One day, after we had been friends for well over a year, they (perhaps jokingly at first) said that I should come visit them. I live in Minnesota. But then we actually started talking about it, and they were really willing to come have me visit, even let me stay with them instead of a hotel or something... and I realized that I had enough money saved up for a couple of plane tickets. So I went ahead and did it! So the first time I ever flew was when I went from Minneapolis to Los Angeles, and then shortly after flew non-stop over the entire Pacific Ocean to Sydney. I had a great time, and a great story to tell.

Never been to any meet and greets, though. I don't think that's the kind of thing for me. (Also, they primarily take place on coasts that I live nowhere near.)

Like people have said, ANY origin can be used to justify just about ANY powerset. It just depends on what kind of story you want to tell.

Personally, my Mercs/Poison MM (Professor Orange) is science, because although the poisons he throws aren't exactly powers so much as things he's made, the reason he throws poison at random people is because while he was working as a chemist, he experimented on himself and went insane. So now he runs around with chemically mind controlled soldiers, shooting and throwing poison at everyone, all to aid in his quest to make everything in the world colored orange.

It all makes perfect sense if you're insane.

I'm a huge fan of Sporcle. This is a great idea!

Now I can put my random CoH knowledge to use there. Instead of just putting my freakishly good geography knowledge to use. (Seriously, there's a quiz that asks you to list all the countries and their capitals in the world, with no map, and it lists the answers in random order. And I can get 100% just about every time on it. I'm a freak. )