Pilcrow

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you do get an inspiration to respond to an AS attack . . . . its called an awaken

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LOL. Cute. Funny. Unless it can allow you to be on the offensive within 1 second, not really a solution.

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That was because magnitude of holds could trump the inspirations, thus making them useless.

I fail to see how seeing a Stalker before he/she even gets a chance to line you up somehow doesn't prevent you from being AS'd.

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Stack enough Disciplines and the magnitudes of the holds could not trump them.

Stack enough Insights and the stregnth of the stealth cannot trump them.

I was asking how the situations were DIFFERENT.

They're not, so why shouldn't we get a way to RESPOND to a stealth snipe the way we can now RESPOND to a status?

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Again - another post about responding to an attack. How about preventing it? There's more than enough tools out there to detect a Stalker.

This point seems to get ignored.

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As does this point.

Before the arena there was a perfectly good way to PREVENT a status effect. It was called the DISCIPLINE INSPIRATION.

For some reason, people did not seem to feel it was enough to be able to PREVENT that kind of attack in PVP, they wanted a way to RESPOND to it.

Thus we have break-frees. Which BOTH PREVENT AND REVERSE status effects.

If it's a sufficient solution to be able to PREVENT only, let's eliminate break-frees and turn them back into DISCIPLINES. Let's see how fun PVP is then.

If you find that untenable, perhapse you might explain how the situation is significantly different here?

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I think I'm in almost total agreement with you except that I think players knowing that there is even a small chance to respond is key. A good Stalker against a poor player should be able to 'gank' about 100% of the time. Against an average player? 80-90%. I don't believe that to be the case at this time. Player response should also put the Stalker at risk; those able to remove themselves from combat straight after an AS should either: Not get a kill or be at risk of serious harm.

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Then I'd like the chance to be able to respond to being slept, held, confused, taunted, sniped, ice patched, critted, and debuffed.

Deal?

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That's why we not have Break Frees instead of Disciplines. Because Disciplines were unable to be reactive and let you RESPOND to a status effect.

You can't RESPOND to a one shot.

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Correct, but you can PREVENT it from happening in the first place (for Stalkers).

You can't tell me otherwise because I've played against people of all ATs who've managed to avoid AS one way or another.

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Well, when they faced a similar problem with controllers, they converted the PREVENT inspiration to a RESPOND inspiration.

You can do the math from there.

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Trick Question. The answer doesn't matter. It has the same psychological effect that a one-shot does.

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Bingo. This was exactly my point.

PvP is a very fine balance and there are a lot of ways to creatively combine powers for extreme effect. Assassin Attacks, while powerful, are only the most visable (irony?) example. There are others which are worse and whatever solution we come up with for 'The one shot problem' has to address as many variations as we can identify.

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I agree, which is why I felt encouraged when you said the 1 HP solution is only one of the "solutions" you are considering.

Anything that kills you in X secons or less (I'd say 2) is something that can "instagank" you - i.e. kill you before you even know you're under attack.

That's the problem. Be it one shot or three.

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I think I'm in almost total agreement with you except that I think players knowing that there is even a small chance to respond is key. A good Stalker against a poor player should be able to 'gank' about 100% of the time. Against an average player? 80-90%. I don't believe that to be the case at this time. Player response should also put the Stalker at risk; those able to remove themselves from combat straight after an AS should either: Not get a kill or be at risk of serious harm.

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Then I'd like the chance to be able to respond to being slept, held, confused, taunted, sniped, ice patched, critted, and debuffed.

Deal?

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Well Slows and debuffs aren't directly fatal but otherwise sure thing. A break free is a response to mez effects, other effects need a response too.

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Just like yellow insps are a response to Stalkers being hidden.

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It's not a response. It only does you any good if you hit it BEFORE the Stalker attacks.

A response genreally comes AFTER the stimulus.

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I think I'm in almost total agreement with you except that I think players knowing that there is even a small chance to respond is key. A good Stalker against a poor player should be able to 'gank' about 100% of the time. Against an average player? 80-90%. I don't believe that to be the case at this time. Player response should also put the Stalker at risk; those able to remove themselves from combat straight after an AS should either: Not get a kill or be at risk of serious harm.

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Then I'd like the chance to be able to respond to being slept, held, confused, taunted, sniped, ice patched, critted, and debuffed.

Deal?

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That's why we not have Break Frees instead of Disciplines. Because Disciplines were unable to be reactive and let you RESPOND to a status effect.

You can't RESPOND to a one shot.

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Is it just me or can't most of these PvP "problems" be solved by not standing still in a free fire zone.

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If it's really that simple, then the devs could simply add an inherent toggle called scuffle that keeps your character shucking and jiving when you aren't actively moving. That would create this constant movement of which you speak.

Only problem is that such a power is only good against the Stalkers assasin's strike power and not against the other ATs that can 1 shot. Move all you want, you aren't going to screw with that unperceived Blaster's sniper shot/

Still, if people think the proper counter for AS is constant movement, then it shouldn't be a big deal to automate constant movement for people.

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I think the complaint with "one-shotting" isn't so much a single attack, but

incoming damage over a 1-2 second period, so fast that you can't hit an INSP or a healing power before being dead.

That is a "one-shot", just as much as a single 4000HP attack from an AV is a one-shot.

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QFT

One possible correction for this would be some way to automate inspiration chewing, BTW. A macro command like

/HP_trigger [point] [action]

EXAMPLE" /HP_Trigger 25% "{that command that eats a specific type of inspiration set to eat a respite}"

of, if you are a defender /HP_Trigger 25% "powexec name healing aura"

Also nice would be

/END_Trigger

and even

/Status_trigger

Such commands would allow people to automate something to keep them alive between the first shot and the already queued second shot so they might actually be able to do more than watch their guy faceplant.

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I believe Statesman's criterion when he commented on the one-shot issue was that it eliminated player interaction. The defender had no role in the kill.

That's the case when you're TP Foed into caltrops and mines. There's no chance of interaction by the defender, they're immediately killed. So yeah, by that criterion it's a one-shot.

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What about all the Holds/Sleep/Immobilzed/ETC. That pretty much elimintes my interaction.

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Which is why they added break frees and status supression.

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Quick question:

Is Caltrops + (Trip Mine * 3) a "One Shot" or is it 4 attacks?

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Hey Castle.

Well, the */DEV is exposed to danger while he sets up the trip mines, but when he actually does the TP Foe...it feels a lot like a 1 shot.

Frankly, I think the solution to that particular problem is to change the way TP Foe works in PVP. Instead of TPing the foe directly to your reticle, it TPs them X feet ABOVE your reticle and gives then the good ol' TP Hover. Now they've got two seconds to figure out how to keep off those mines. If they have Fly or TP, the answer is pretty simple.

And, if they're not right now, mines should be targetable and susceptible to knockback.

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This looks like a disguised "Nerf Stalkers!" post... Maybe it's just me.

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Well, the stalker REP _Castle_ wants to eliminate 1 shots. So, I guess the Stalker rep is a disguised Stalker nerfherder.

Can we consider, just for one tiny moment, that Stalkers have the potential to be more than 1 shot killers. Or that, if they don't have that potential now, the devs will be smart enough to counterbalance their 1 shot stopper by buffing some other aspect of the Stalker AT?

If Stalkers don't stop treating every post on this subject as a nerfherding of their AT, they're not going to have their voices heard on HOW such a system should be put in place and WHAT compensation Stalkers should receive to keep them viable in a world without 1 shots.

Edit: Shameless plug for my idea for a one shot fix

Equally shameless plug for (my variant of) Aracana's idea for a one shot fix

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Statesman seems to think that there is no satisfaction in crafting where you just put some items together into a menu and hit build.

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Actually, I was talking about Skills, not crafting.

What's the difference? In the end, crafting yields a usable commodity. In Skills, you might have unlocked a door or opened a safe or whatever....if I could guarantee that clicking on a computer could yield as cool a reward as an Enhancement, well, that'd be something. But the problem is that there are only a few computers in the world (and missions), whereas crafting is rather unlimited. One needs to undergo risk to gather resources (let's use Salvage as an example), but there isn't much risk in clicking on a computer.

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Hey there! We've missed you.

First off. I'm pretty happy with the way you've put creafting in the game. As an SG related thing it works really well since there's almost always someone in the SG who actually likes that kind of activity, letting those of us who don't contribute to the SG in other ways. I know you will be pressured to expand it in many ways and I hope the ways in which you expand it continue to offer the outlet to those who want it without infringing on those who don't.

Skills is something I'd still like to see, and let me echo the comment that if you open up a good conversation about them you will get some pretty creative input. I've heard you say you've tried more than one skill system and that they failed to be "fun". I can believe that.

Someone started a thread to try and come up with a skills system. Please, take the time to post what you want the system to accomplish, what you tried and why it failed and you'll be sure to see a lot of good ideas.

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Tal_N, Statesman never said that about crafting, he said that about the skill system. Skills probably won't have you out killing gaint spiders to harvest webbing or what not. It's probably going to be along the lines of, "Alright, I can search the base for the Card Key or I can try Hacking the door" In which case you'd walk up to a computer terminal, click on it and your rank would detrimine if you pass or fail. That's it, all there would be to it. While with crafting theres a build up and an end, Skills would happen in a split second without anything else. Inheriently that's pretty boring. So Statesman wants to make that interaction interesting in some way.

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QFT. I've only heard him make statements like this related to SKILLS.

He wants skills to be something you gain in a non-combat manner, which makes earning it potentially not-fun, and therefore if the using of it is a simple click thing, which is also boring, you wind up with a power-up that provides not fun either in the earning or in the using. So he's added a way to increase your capabilities that is neither fun to earn nor use, ergo, time sink. UGH.

I hope he finds a way around the problem.

But as far as CRAFTING does, the fact that crafting is in the game now in one form shows that he feels he has found a way to make it fun and to have risk = reward. So I suspect you might see expansions of crafting in later issues.

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I am unsuprised to note that Step #4 is missing. Proving, as I expected, that this claim was hyperbole. There is simply no way to troll logical arguments.

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Of course there isn't, Pilcrow. Logical Arguments and Logical-seeming arguments are... not the same thing.

Good point, though!

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Actually, the only difference between the two is the lack of actual logic backing up the language. Since one may place a logical post without actually posting the logic itself, the troller has no way to know whether or not the post is backed by real logic when he trolls the post.

Therefore, the poster must be prepared to manage both the logical sounding post and the truly logical post if he is to be able to succeed in churning up conversation. Without a way to deal with the rare, but very real, possibility that the post is, in fact, logical and backed by fact, the troller is likely to be revealed for what he is...unless his plan of attack on a logical sounding post will somehow also work to some extent on a truly logical post.

And, since you admit that there is no way to battle a truly logical post, there is no way to handle even a logical sounding post without the risk of revealing yourself. Quite the Gordian knot you have ther.

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Although you have a point about the delay, making up a "fake dialog" defining the difference between the two is a pain.

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If you are successfully trolling you ought to have examples waiting at your fingertips. You needn't make up fake dialog, these thread scroll fast enoguh that the real dialog will be anonymous soon enough. Perhaps you'd provide a link to a thread that demonstrates your 1337 7r011:ng $k:11z for logical "sounding" posts.

Or perhaps you'd provide a link to someone who successfully trolled your logical sounding "formula for fun" thread.

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You're, of course, also ignoring the fact that posting an "overly emotional" response works even on "real" logical threads, as I've posted in Step 3, which you read.

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Perhaps in a thread where the logical sounding post is in the minority this technique would work, re-awakening the Emos and churning responses well. But a thread dominated y logical sounding posts will be exceedingly immune to this technique - as your Emos will have been chased out already.

Seems more like a desparation tactic than a real technique.

You could, of course, prove me wrong here by delivering a real technique for such trolling: but I see nothing in this post that demonstrates that there is any way to troll a logical-sounding post short of smoke and mirrors.

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There are people who post using logical-seeming, dry arguments, and there are people who post with feeling, and little else. One or the other type will typically dominate a thread. The rare few people with actual logical arguments don't concern us - such rare beasts are harmless until aggro'd. It's a good idea not to aggro them - they make terrible opponents, in both meanings of the phrase.

Neither style is more effective, although at first glance logical-seeming arguments appear better...until I get to Step 4, and turn you into a rampaging Captain Ahab of logical-seeming arguments.

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I am unsuprised to note that Step #4 is missing. Proving, as I expected, that this claim was hyperbole. There is simply no way to troll logical arguments.

How to make a Phantom Army Costume

Arkhan's Recipe for a Phantom Army Costume

<ul type="square">
There is some debate on the colors, but


Head:
Full Mask
Chiseled
Mask Full 2
Mask 1

Upper Body
Tight
Tights 2
Sharp

Gloves:
Smooth/Bare
Leather 1

Belt:
Cloth

Lower Body:
Tight

Pants:
Tights 1
Sharp

Boots:
Smooth
Tights

Aura:
Starburt Glow
Starburst Body

COLOR FOR EVERYTHING:
Main (first color, the one on the left) --starting at the bottom right go UP 5, and LEFT 1.

Secondary (second color, the one on the right) -- starting at the bottom right go UP 5, LEFT 2

The aura is the main color. This gives a great effect for PA, not Phants though. [/list]
And also:

<ul type="square">
If you have "stealth", this costume looks very close to PhantomArmy.

If you have "Invis" and the correct aura, you can get very close to the Phantasm.

My toon is only 5' something, so he doesn't match up with the MALE pets, and while he matches size, he doesn't have all the appropriate parts to match the female PA.

Colors will be debated, without "stealth" turned on, its very hard to match them. [/list]
Miz B Havin's Addendums to Arkhan's advice
<ul type="square">
For the female,
I personally do not have Stealth and Group Invis makes it a little to see through to look identical. With Prestige Power Surge (available to those that Pre-Ordered CoH) and the Starburst aura, it still looks pretty close when on the streets.

Not sure if these are the ones I used white or a shade towards the grey when we were debating colors before but here they are...[/list]
And how she looks:
Pic of Miz in PA Costume 1
Pic 2
Rear View
Prestige Power Surge and aura glow as she runs

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Personally, I'm a fan of shadows.

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Now I'm thinking City of Ghosts or Bizarro Paragon

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Me? What do I think is next?

Hmmm. It isn't Spies quite yet...

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Dang! I was hoping for some Nick Fury kind of action.

Hmmmm...

Maybe we're on the wrong side of the equation here. Maybe they're not working on City of _________, but are working on ________ of Heroes/Villians.

Ocean of Heroes.
Planet of Heroes.
Universe of Heroes.


Or perhaps just City of Supers, where every zone has both heroes and villains in variious forms of PVP, not just combat PVP either, but also objectives based PVP that involves no opportunity for direct confrontation of the enemy - simply have to beat them to the punch.

Edit: Speaking of being beat to the punch!

Statesman had a gab-fest with us about ED on Friday. Here are the posts:

Re: ED Testing Results (10/27/05 04:53 PM)
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Thanks for everyone who posted their play experiences on the Training Room: Shadow_Caedere, Lady Andreca, Helmkat, Daemon_TW, KaliMagdalere, James_Bonnell, Tannim222, Ineffable_Bob, Monkey_King, Freelance Wizard, MythrilGuardian, AmazingMoo, PBBredeux, Armsman, Iron Tiger, Speqter, Lobster, Centerfine, Saccade, Schechter, Hudson Smith, Mr. Startle, Valeria, Infernius, The_Z, Reese_Riley, _Ilr_, and Creole_Ned. Each of you described your characters, your missions and foes – it really helped us get an idea of how ED affected players.

By and large, characters’ abilities match what we expected. Some heroes can still solo even on Invincible – though it’s admittedly harder than before. Bosses are tough, but skilled players with Inspirations can handle them.

I5 and ED shared this same goal in common: 1) introduce challenge into missions and 2) make it so that no Archetype can hit his own caps with powers and Enhancements alone. In other words, Defenders, Controllers and Inspirations can always useful and needed buffs.

One of the posters discussed his Tanker – and how he leaped into the fray with 2 Bosses, 2 or 3 lts. And 2 or 3 minions…and promptly had to flee. A spawn such as that in a mission would be designed for 5 heroes. So, yes, a single Tanker might have problems soloing that spawn. He should expect 4 other heroes contributing to that fight! Controllers locking down some of the mobs, Defenders buffing the Tanker, Blasters and Scrappers eliminating mobs…

Evil_CoH has some good questions that I wanted to answer:

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1. Where is the Diversity?
I'm talking about Regen, SR, Invulnerability, Ice, Stone, etc. The problem that a lot of us forsaw is being proven, the defenses are getting weaker and in the cases of a lot of these sets, perhaps too weak.

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As the observations of numerous posters in this thread pointed out, the Tankers and Scrappers can still solo missions – some can even handle spawns designed for larger groups without problems.

I do see the argument that some builds simply don’t have as many powers that they can slot with different types of Enhancements. Passives, for instance, sometimes boost a single attribute and that’s it. Of course, there’s a slight benefit, in that the hero can now have more free slots for other powers, but I understand the underlying issue.

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2. Hover? Why does it have to suffer?
A lot of players want to know, why is it bad that I can move so well with 6-slotted Hover? Certainly a power like this doesn't work the same way as a damage or defense power, why should it play by the same rules?

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I’d like those Buff powers that provide a speed boost to still be desirable, but this is a good point that Geko and I should talk about.

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3. Why only 3?
At least when it comes to the non-schedule A enhancements, why keep the same "rule of three"? And if the rule has to be the same for all schecdules of enhancers, why not go back to the original "3 ok, 4 little less, 5 and 6 bad"

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We accounted for ED in all our testing. At the moment, boosts are where we’d like them to be.

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4. Has ED borked accuracy?
Don't have a cow Geko, but I think enough people are reporting accuracy problems to at least warrant a little code check to see if maybe this change effected something in there.

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I’ll look into it. If anything turns up, I’ll post it.

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RE: ED Testing Results (10/27/05 05:21 PM)
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This is all fine in optimal situations, but what happens if at 3 a.m. the only people LFT in Peregrine are a tank, 2 blasters, and a scrapper? Does that simply mean they can not tackle one of the 40 AVs offered in the 40+ game?

Forced teaming is harsh enough, but when its forced teaming that requires a certain number or a certain AT, then not only is it not much fun, its not that easily attainable.

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A good point. AV's take perhaps a half-dozen players to take down. I like having epic battles at the zenith of a player's career, but perhaps this is too stringent.

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RE: ED Testing Results (10/27/05 05:30 PM)
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It's way too abrupt to promote real diversity. Why not convert it to a slowly sliding scale that ends at the same values?

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Good question, Pilcrow. We knew the % caps we wanted out of ED...and we also wanted to impact players as little as possible. Currently, the system doesn't affect anyone with DO and only begins affecting someone with a third SO. If we were to ramp down the % to a slower sliding scale, we'd for sure be affecting even the second SO - and, if the scale was that slight - the first SO.

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RE: ED Testing Results (10/27/05 05:35 PM)
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First, why would you assume that all 5-man teams consist of a controller, a defender, a blaster, a scrapper, and a tanker? You do realize, don't you, that lots of times this is not possible nor even fun? What about a team that is a tank, 2 scappers, and 2 blasters? Or a team that is 5 tankers? Or a team that is 4 scrappers and a controller?

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Sorry if my example gave that impression. If a group is made up of a Tanker and 4 Scrappers - then the 4 Scrappers will be defeating foes while the Tanker tries to hold aggro. In that situation, a Tanker hardly needs to hold the aggro of every mob; Scrappers can easily take on 3 to 4 minions without too much trouble.

Each Archetype has to have an ACTIVE part in the combat - yes, that's true. It's not about the ideal team, but it's about developing tactics that fit your team composition.

Remember, ED essentially affects only characters levels 25+; by this point in the game, players have a pretty good grasp of the game and the various powers. Is there a challenge in working with different composition groups? Sure! But that's exactly the point. Learning new tactics, different strategies - this is the core of any game.

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RE: ED Testing Results (10/27/05 05:40 PM)
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So what point is there in having a difficulty slider, then?

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To provide a challenge, of course. But the problem was: it wasn't. The Heroic to Invincible scale simply didn't provide any challenge. There's definitely a problem when players need to resort to teaming up with other players, and dropping them right after entering the mission in order to boost the spawn size.

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RE: ED Testing Results (10/27/05 05:49 PM)
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I'd ask that you consider making it a priority to add a way for players to abandon missions. I loathe big teams, and if the goal for AVs is that they require six people to take them down, then I'd like some way to bypass that content.

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On the priority list. To be honest, we haven't instituted it before for fear that people would run out of content. It's extremely easy to say "well, I don't want to face Carnival - I think I'll drop this story arc..." - and then do the same to several others...before you know it, a player has hit a dead spot in levels.

BUT in City of Villains, we have "newspapers" that provide a near endless supply of one-off missions. Once we introduce that into City of Heroes, we'll add the abandon mission tech.

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RE: ED Testing Results (10/27/05 05:52 PM)
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You deftly dodged the meat of my comment though, which is that playing my ED-compliant tanker on a team of 8 was death unless I switched into scrapper mode and had her do hit-and-run or perimeter strike tactics. And while there is nothing wrong with such tactics in the abstract, they are not TANKING.

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Could you PM me your build, your team and what you were fighting - and tactics?

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RE: ED Testing Results (10/27/05 05:54 PM)
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At this moment it's just so sad to be a rifle/dev blaster.

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Meant to mention this - I'll look into this. I read several refrains about this problem...

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RE: ED Testing Results (10/27/05 06:25 PM)
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That's easy to explain--he's dishonest. Otherwise, he'd have laid out that whole "vision" rather explicitly and published what "as intended" is.


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Actually, I did back in July.

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RE: ED Testing Results (10/27/05 06:28 PM)
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Just as there's definitely a problem when heroic's sometimes too difficult for certain powersets to deal with...

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Now if this is true...we've got a problem. The results that people have posted, and from what we've got from the Training Room do not in any way suggest that even Heroic is impossible. Someone asked earlier in this thread, "is there anything we'd do to change ED" - this is it. Heroic is the base level of difficulty - everyone (baring mistakes) should be able to complete Heroic missions.

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RE: ED Testing Results (10/27/05 06:33 PM)
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Are you saying the slider doesn't work?

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It "didn't" work...sure, it increased difficulty - from fall asleep boring to just mind numbing. On Invincible, some builds would team up just to artificially boost spawn sizes. I myself was part of teams where I was told to sit by the entrance and just leech XP. Really.

If someone is on Invincible, this means they're the cream of the crop. They're doing what most can't. Invincible should be hard. Why? Because really good players should be able to find something that takes them to the limit.

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RE: ED Testing Results (10/27/05 06:40 PM)
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Whoa whoa... 25+?
So that means the young hero at level 12, slots his best blast power with 1 acc and 5 dmg... cause he has seen a significant performance increase by doing so, even with training enhancements... he has to totally rethink his approach to slotting once he gets to 25?? Well, really 22, since that's when you can first buy SOs.

That just seems like you are abandoning your stance of "players making informed decisions." If this hero never comes to the boards, or reads his patch notes... he's going to sorely disappointed with the performance of his powers upon reaching the mid-levels.

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Not at all. As a player gains SO's and slots them - he can choose to put them into that six slotted power - and decide whether to put all of the same kind of Enhancement or to diversify his slotting.

Ah-ha! But what about those powers that accept only a single kind of Enhancement! These players will have slots at early levels that give negligible benefit at higher levels. There's no way a player could reasonably foresee this...and this is somewhat an issue. For one, players can respec - but perhaps we should add additional "free respecs" at certain level marks. That's something that I'm discussing internally.

But by no means does this "destroy a character" to have extra slots in those powers. Players often quote my (infamous) belief that players shouldn't make uninformed decisions. Remember the context, though. A game should also not encumber a player with too much information either. A player should get enough information to be able to play the game - period. In the case of City of Heroes, a player should be able to make choices in game that allows them at least to be able to play at Heroic - the default setting. And right now, ED does not affect that - if it does, there's a problem.

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RE: ED Testing Results (10/27/05 07:02 PM)
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1. Are you going to look at making existing enhancers that aren't often slotted (range, KB, etc.) more appealing in some manner?

2. Are you going to be looking to add new TYPES of enhancements to the game so we have more choices in slotting?

3. Are you going to look at adding aspects to "one trick pony" powers so we have something else to slot in them?

4. Many people posted about a decrease in XP gain, is an increase in MOB XP being considered?


[/ QUOTE ]

I received these questions from Pilcrow in a PM, so I thought I'd answer them here.

1. Always open to ideas here.

2. Yes.

3. Again, open to ideas, but if the balance is right for a particular build, we'll need to decrease to compensate anything we add.

4. Yes.

Also - just to make sure that this is clear. People should be able to solo on Heroic. They should be able to team up with other players and contribute against spawns that range +1 to +3 levels. Obviously, the greater the level difference, the less the contribution.

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I can't think of a reason why the devs would want to "avoid" having level 50's generate extra prestige. It sounds like a perfect reward for maxing out your character, to me.

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Why would you want anything other than level 50's in your SG then?

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<ul type="square">[*]Because they're nice people[*]Because I have more than one character in the SG and only some of them are at 50[*]Because we'd find helping the SG get a good base as entertaining an end-game as a kheldian[*]Because I make choices of whose in my SG for reasons beyond "who can do the most for us in terms of making us the most uber-SG in the game"[/list]
Those are just the first few that came to mind.

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Correct ED formulas

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The math man strikes again!

Thank you, sir.

Circeus just posted an Enhancement Diversification Spreadsheet you might find worth checking out.

Preventing the purge of this thread.

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Nice update, Pilcrow. I tried the link to the calculator, and it came up as a dead link. However, that may be because I tried from my office computers, which have all kinds of Firewalls.

I have a high-level Ill/Rad, but my spouse wanted us to set up a pair of characters to team always. So, I made an Ill/Kin and she is an Ill/Rad. (They have matching costumes, too -- really nausiating!) Great synergy between the two, as Illusion Controllers complement each other, unlike most other controllers. This weekend, we went from level 16 to 20. She said, and I agree, that no other AT is affected with a substantial change by one power as the effect that PA has on Illusion Controllers. At level 17, we tried a mission, with a tank, that caused a team wipe. After hitting 18, picking up our PA, resetting and going in without the tank, the mission was no problem. Our six (count 'em! Six!) marshmallow men (and women) made all the difference.

At 19, we both slotted two recharge, one damage. If we alternate, we can just about keep PA out constantly. I presume we will end up with three recharge, three damage. ED sure seems like it reduces the options, where the only choice is whether to replace a damage or a recharge with an accuracy.

Do you think we will ever get any pet controls, other than the "Dismiss Pets" command? Positron's guide to MasterMinds on the CoV boards make it clear that we will never get the level of control over pets that the MasterMind has, but it kind of suggests that we may get some kind of command ability. Any thoughts?

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With two illusions rotating PA, you two will always have a "TANK". When you pick up phantasms you'll have blasters, too. Quite the team.

As for pet controls. I hold out hope that the devs will see that dismiss gives us an ersatz version of heel and just up and give us heel. But outside of that and cosmetic things like naming, I doubt we'll see much in pet controls. Even heel and naming will likely only be given to us if we agitate about it.

If you want to control your pets, I guess you have to play an MM.