Sailboat

Huh. There's been some kind of massive cultural shift recently?

Quills is one of the strengths of the set, I'd try to squeeze it in. The easy thing to drop for Quills would be the leadership powers, but that's late, and it keeps you from getting into the ancillaries (like Physical Perfection). Hrm. I may not have an answer for you, it may come down to a matter of preference.

While it's true that Boxing won't cause a redraw penalty for Spines (because Spines is the only remaining set with the old "baked in" redraw penalties...you'll pause for redraw even if you don't use Boxing, so no loss if you do), I'll point out that Ripper is unusually efficient for an AoE attack, and can be used like a single-target attack. My Spines Scrapper uses Lunge-Impale-Ripper as his three ST attacks, and Ripper-Spine Burst-Throw Spines (and in my case Energy Torrent from the ancillary) as AoE attacks. Ripper does double duty quite well. I have Boxing and Tough but have not bothered to put Boxing on my power tray.

Well, I agree with the other posters that this doesn't necessarily herald system-wide change, but it would be interesting if the HO issues were addressed.

As far as I am aware, Shields getting to the DDR cap with HOs is the "hot" use right now of the way HOs currently affect more aspects than their description indicates.

While I don't wish nerfs on anyone ( I have numerous shield characters myself), it seems to me that some slight adjustment to Shields is in order when the answer to every question is "Shields is clearly superior," as has been the case lately. A (theoretical) HO change would relegate Shields to the basic level of DDR (defense debuff resistance) which the powerset can reach without HO use -- that's already more DDR than anyone but SR, isn't it? Something like 67%, compared to 50% for Invulnerability and 95% for Super Reflexes. That would still leave Shields quite strong -- my Inv Tanker does fine against defense debuffs with his measly 50% DDR -- but at least give SR some kind of area where it's not matched or outclassed by Shields.

Frankly such a change wouldn't even knock Shields out of the top spot for melee defensive powersets anyway.

I really don't have anything against Shields per se, I just dislike it when a new powerset is so souped-up it completely outclasses all previous powersets. Ideally, it should take its place as their peer in functionality, and the shininess of being new would still make it popular.

Diablo 2 did this (made a new "powerset," or in its case, class, clearly superior) somewhat notoriously when they introduced changes adding a lot of elemental resistances and immunities to endgame monsters, and applying a whopping penalty to the resistances of all characters in high-level areas...and then added two new classes with superior ranges of elemental damage types (so they'd be likelier to "get around" a given foe's elemental immunity) AND skills that boosted their own elemental resistances. The Assassin and Druid were much more potent than many of the older classes in the new end-game environment.

When you're replying to me, what I wrote is germane, and bringing in some outside consideration and pretending it addresses what I wrote is basically deceitful.

Ahem. because you went to the trouble of conspicuously NOT linking to the source of castle's quote, I dug it out myself.

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showt...en#post2628075

Notice anything? The thread, and Castle's entire post, is about PVP IOs. We've been talking about purple drops. You've casually omitted Castle's topic and made as if his comments applied to purples.

As far as I know, no purple ha ever sold for 2 billion influence as you assert, and as you try to make Castle appear to assert. PVP IOs yes, but PVP IOs are rarer than purples for additional reasons -- the small PVP population, the (apparent) fact that many PVPers lost interest after the "diminishing returns" change, etc.) In fact, the really super-expensive PVP IOs (those 2 billion ones) are actually a very few specific items with truly unique advantages (global defense, -teleport, +life AND +end, and so on).

Hell, I recently (I think it was last month) bought my first PVP IO recipe for only 15 million -- a triple, at that. That's not a bad price at all for what it was.

I very carefully confined my discussion to regular set IOs and purples, as that's where I came into the conversation. PVP IOs are a different animal in some important ways. It's not correct to assume they are priced like purples or vice-versa.

It's worthless for me to complain about your attempt to conflate purples with PVP IOs and to misrepresent Castle to support your position, but it's a good idea for anyone reading this thread to weigh that when considering the accuracy, sincerity, and validity of your posts.

Any particular reason you're picking secondaries that work better against large groups for an AV soloing toon? Both WP and SD get a a huge boost to what are arguably their most desirable powers from being surrounded by large groups.

And how would you expect an online gaming population full of gold farmers, spammers, hackers, botters, PKers, and dupers wants to play?

Fine, as long as we make a new, more desirable category of IO that drops very rarely and is not itself purchasable with merits and/or tickets. This new category of IO will then take the place of Purples as the rare, desirable, random reinforcement that the Devs seem to want in the game, and Purples will be demoted to merely another IO set.

Because it's clear the Devs do want something in the game that's rare that can't be acquired by merits.

It seems to me like an enormous pain in the butt to make them demote Purples and create an entirely new category that works the exact same way, but you can ask them to do it if you want. The key thing is that some kind of top-end desirable items remain not purchasable with merits and/or tickets, as the devs intended.

Yes, the market is supposed to be starved for supply of ultra-rare items. That's what ultra-rare means.

What does "the supply of pops" refer to in this context?

I scrolled down all that was for this?

[Miracle Max]I never worked for so little![/Miracle Max]

The mistake here is equating a freeform RPG with a freeform MMO. RPG does not equal MMO in any but the most superficial ways.

As I described above, from the extensive experience of myself (and others) with freeform tabletop RPGs, I can tell you they were NOT balanced without a dedicated live human game master and I believe they cannot BE balanced without a dedicated live human game master without placing such restrictions on them as would essentially render them no longer "free-form."

In other words, "to balance" = "to place limits (restrictions) on some game rules and functions" in sufficient quantity that many players would say "it's not free-form." The very act of "balance" requires either the careful attention of a (preferably experienced) live human being (not possible on the scale of even the smallest subscription MMO populations) or a set of limits/rules/restrictions.

I GMed the Champions Paper and Pencil game for ten years, and I can tell you the Hero System works ONLY if a GM moderates it closely, firmly and objectively. Heck, a large number of the game rules specifically say "GM determines the frequency of this in his campaign," and hence the point value. Without a GM's consistent guidance, there's inherent pressure on the players to bend the intent and even the letter of the rules, and the characters become distorted beyond the designed power level of the campaign.

MMO's don't have a true game master making consistent decisions, and I firmly believe such a system won't work well in the unmoderated wild, wild West of an online MMO.

Don't worry about transferring; if you're low-level, it shouldn't be trouble for veterans to make a brand-new character on your chosen server and catch up quickly enough to help you.

If people don't buy it at the new, high price, the recipes sit unsold and the manipulators take a bath de-listing and losing their list fee, then re-listing lower. And that happens; I've been caught overpricing stuff several times (I'm not much of a marketeer, actually).

What's "reasonable?" Some players want it more; some players have more money. How can we determine what's "reasonable" in a world where supply is limited and random (which is the world the Devs seem committed to; we'll never be able to buy set IOs at a store for a fioxed price).

Here's how: The market exists mostly to determine what a "reasonable bid" is. We ask everyone what they're willing to pay -- for real, not what they'd assert in a forum argument -- and by God, we find out.

I respectfully request that IF we ever do get dual maces, such builds be referred to in the forums as "drummers."

Say what?