PhroX

I though so

For me it's the opposite. I couldn't really care what the source material is. I play Co* cos it's the best designed MMO I've ever come across (that's not to say there's no flaws, but that the core design principles are so far above EQ, WoW and their various ripoffs).

I can't make a complete judgement of you, cos I've not seen many of your posts (I tend to stay out of the tanker forum), but this quote hints to me that your problem with the game is mainly that it's a MMO first and a superhero game second. I've noticed Ultimo_ seeming to have a similar attitude in the past (his inability to create a suitable Iron Man clone for example). Not that it's necessarily a bad attitude to have, but it's one that will lead to disappointment...

Or a debuffer

Sorry if I've misunderstood, but the bolded bit seems to be saying that you are equating:

"There are major problems with endurance usage throughout the game" (what you're saying)
and
"There are some problems in a very small part of the game, but overall it's fine". (what a fair few people here, including me, are saying)

If so, then it's no wonder people accuse you of lying. You are deliberately distorting facts to make your side of the argument seem more popular than it is.

Same. I usually just find a good place to get 4-5 people and fire it off. If we're waiting around before a fight, I might say "AM" and give them a couple of secs to get to me, but on a moving team, or any in a fight, I won't bother.

Though, on my Widow, I don't even do that: Mind Link is on auto (mainly cos I solo a lot on that char, and given that it's a key part of my softcapped def, it's just easier to have it going off automatically than having to keep watching it)

I just wanted to quote this, cos it pretty much sums up all the ATs in CoH. None are needed for anything (even the Mo badges don't need a specific AT, let alone a specific build), but all can bring something useful to the table.

On my IOed out scrapper, I can take almost much any punishment the game thows at me, but I still love to have a tanker. Why? Cos he can control the aggro and let me focus solely on killing things.

BST is indeed our daylight savings, it works out as GMT+1. In the winter, we're just at GMT and so no other names are needed.


And yeah, the event was fun. Laggy as hell, and a bit repetative (only 7-8 different enemies IIRC), but still good fun. Thanks Mod08 for running it

I've never had that, though on my scrapper I often get complained about, and have once been kicked* for putting tanks to shame. If you want to go in first, it's your job to ensure you stay in front of me



* Note that when I get complained at for jumping into mobs before the tank, I explain that I can usually take it (<3 softcap + Aid Self ) and if I die, well, it's only a wakie. Most accept this and let me be an idiot, though if they continue complaining, I stop doing it as I understand that not everyone likes how I play. The time I got kicked, the tank (who was the leader) seemed to accept me doing it. Then he kicked me along with a tell saying that I needed to learn how to play.


As to the question of kins without SB and so on, my attitude is that if you don't want to use it, fine, don't take it. I might remark on it and ask why, as the person could easily be a newbie who doesn't know whats good yet, but if they just don't like the power, I can understand fully: I love everything else about the kinetics powerset, but I despise having to rebuff every 2 minutes. The point of the game is to have fun, so build the character that you enjoy playing. If you know that it's the norm to do otherwise, it's nice if you mention before we start that you've not taken SB or have some other "odd" build, but that's just courtesy.

However, if you have taken a power, I expect it to be used. I won't kick unless it's really bad (say, an empath with 1 blast who only uses that one blast and nothing else...), but I will start complaining a lot if you have something that would be really useful and it's sitting there unused.

It's worth checking out. Not something that you can really enjoy, but fascinating none-the-less.

To clarify, Bokurano and Narutaru aren't particularly violent or such, instead they're more about putting children in extreme situations - situations that would break most adults - and seeing how they're affected in a realistic manner.


**** There's a couple of spoilers in what I'm gonna say, but they're all from pretty early on in it so they shouldn't destroy the series for you. Stop reading now if that bothers you. ****



In Bokurano's case (much like Evangelion, which is in many ways a very similar premise; deconstructing the mecha genre and investigating what would actually happen), it's saving the world with a giant mecha that only the children (15 of them) can pilot. The first time they pilot themselves it results in civilian causualties in the thousands (IIRC), as well as the death of one of the kids. The second time culminates with the first big reveal, delivered in the most devastatingly offhand manner ("oh, whoops, did I forget to tell you?"): the mecha is powered by their life force - every time it's used, one of them dies. And then it gets worse. No, really, thats the high point.

I think for me what makes it so much worse than Evangelion is that in the latter, the kids are already f***ed up. In Bokurano, they're, for the most part, pretty normal, yet, over the course of the series, they are systematically destroyed.

Yep, the manga gets far far worse.

The same guy who wrote it did another series called Bokurano (which has also been adapted into an anime but I don't believe it's available in America yet). It takes the same attitude and applies it to the mecha genre. The result is something that makes Evangelion look like Carebears.

Ergh...that's all down to executive meddling. It was supposed to just be a straightforward second season, but they got a better timeslot for it compared to the first season, and as they thought they'd end up with a lot more viewers who hadn't seen the first, they had to do all the recapy stuff and that idiotic first episode.

Ah well, even if it does get really ridiculous later on, it's still great fun. Except for Ep09. YOU FAIL CHESS FOREVER!!!!


As for recommendations, here's a few things I've seen recently:

Noir and Madlax - Often known as the "girls with guns" series, Noir and it's spiritual succesor Madlax do indeed feature girls/young women, and they do indeed have guns. However, they are not the fanservice and explosion ridden romps you'd expect. Instead, they're deep complex stories with some fantastically developed characters. Plenty of mystery and conspiricies, a touch of mysticism (more pronounced in Madlax) and some excellent Woo-inspired gunfights (though there's no blood..). Not always an easy watch, but very very rewarding when you get into it.

Narutaru (Shadow Star) - Narutaru starts off pretty innocently. A young girl is on holiday when she finds a strange but cute creature and they become friends. The girl soon finds other people with similar creatures, some of who want to fight using them. But don't be put off but all the cute happiness, as its gets worse. Oh hell it gets worse. Essentially, this does to the Mons genre what things like Evangelion and Bokurano did to giant mecha.

Heroic Age - In the words of TVTropes: "20% Gurren Lagann, 30% Galactic Heroes, 15% Godzilla, 200% Dragon Ball!!!" Add in a dash of Greek Mythology and you've got something awesome

Puni Puni Poemi - A parody of the magical girl genre, as done by the team behind Excel Saga. Need I say more?

Yeah, it's pretty cleverly done. It doesn't confuse non-number crunching players, as their debuffs increase their damage by exactly what they expect them to, an at the same time prevents the debuffs from trivialising high-resistance encounters.

The other oddity when it comes to debuffs the fact that resistance resists damage debuffs. While this not only means that -dam is less effective on high-res enemies, but that -res increases the effect of -dam. A dark/sonic defender could (if there was no cap) pretty much take a targets damage to 0% (someone else can work it out eactly, but its (DN + TG + Fluffy's TG)*(TP + 3-4x sonic -res))

While this is technically true, due to the way it works, you will always increase your damage by the magnitude of the res debuff (30% in this case), so you can pretty much ignore this particular effect.

Example to explain for those that care:

Target A - 0% Res
Target B - 50% Res

Shoot each with a 100 damage attack:
A takes 100 dam
B takes 50 dam

Now, apply a 10% res debuff
A now has -10% res
B has (50-(50%*10)) = 45% res

Hit with the attack again
A takes 110 damage
B takes 55 damage

A has taken (110-100)/100 = 10% more damage
B has taken (55-50)/50 = 10% more damage

I was having the same problem, but this sorted it for me. Thanks Doc

Actually, I did post the right link - I put that one in my first post; the high recharge + gloom one was in response to EM supposedly being crap on high end builds

The thing is, the devs have always said they balance for SOs. And energy isn't the only set that falls behind when it comes to stupid levels of recharge the game wasn't designed for.

Also, EM isn't bad at ST damage high levels of recharge. Here's the thread for 250% rech.

I'm not saying there's no issue, but the problem with boosting ET - or other ST attacks - to make them better at high recharge is that they'll make Energy more powerful at "normal" recharge, which is not only where the game is balanced about, but it's also where Energy is far from needing a boost.

Hence why I feel that a boost to Whirling Hands is most likely, as EM is lacking in AoE damage at all levels of recharge. Give it a damage scalar of, say, 1.4-1.5 and it'd be much more useful (~FS damage, but in a smaller area and with no Rage).

Though I'll admit I've not personally taken an EM character to high levels, so I'm only going off the numbers here, thus perhaps I'm missing something.