Scientist

Thanks; I knew the power effects were different, since I've used its equivalent on my villian, its just that the name used above for the heroside KR Safeguard power was Jump Pack just like the GvE power, which I figured could lead to keybind problems.

Question on this; the name "Jump Pack" for the KR Safeguard temp power looks the same as the Good vs. Evil "Jump Pack" temp power. How do you distinguish between them in a keybind?

One other thing I've noticed about the "Jail Break" side mission is that its got some brutally hard spawns in it the couple of times I've done it, like double boss spawns when I was duoing it on Rugged (middle difficulty). And the named villian spawn downstairs had *three* bosses for the two of us, with the named one hitting us with psi and Fear effects that Dispersion Bubble didn't stop. For added fun they hit you as you are zoning in from the elevator, so you don't even get a chance to prebuff or plan tactics.

So be careful on this one, and be prepared to use some Insps, especially before going down the elevator.

Heck, I noticed it fighting Council on my Warshade in Nova form; glad I had ranged blasts, half the fights I was finishing my blasts were chasing runners around the corner. A month or two ago when I was briefly playing my rad defender I noticed more anchor running then I did on the way to 50.

I think in response to people asking for "improvements to AI to make fights more challenging instead of nerfing powers" the AI folks may have been tinkering with things slowly and steadily over the last 6 months or so. And I've never (aside from the one AV mention) seen an AI change discussed in patch notes, I think thats considered "back end" code changes rather than a specific power change.

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One caveat I'd apply here, some players moment-to-moment fun may come *more* from improving the functioning of the team then purely from faster XPs. They enjoy the "middle M" part of the MMO. This probably comes more from players of defenders and controllers then, say, scrappers, but it does exist, and it provides some reason to take an "explain first" approach rather than just a quit.

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I'm not sure I understand the first part of your caveat; moment-to-moment fun does derive from team magnification for many, including me-- it's what I like best, matter-o-fact.

Also, I'm not sure if you're arguing in favor of explain-and-stay, or explain-and-quit. I assume the latter, since that's what the rest is discussing.

Preferring it to quitting without explanation, as my guide describes, is a gamble; it's a game of skilled gambling, not of chance, to be sure. If we must, I'm sure we can agree to disagree about the odds on that particular gamble, but if somebody's doing something egregiously stupid on your team already, and nobody else's doing anything about it, I'm saying, I think the odds are poor, and for the majority of players, who have somewhat less experience with PuGs than I, it's certainly a losing gamble.

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My apologies for not explaining better; I was arguing in favor of explaining, rather than your strongly recommended option 4 of quitting without explaining. That can be explain and stay awhile longer, then explain and quit, but the exact course depends on how the team reacts IMHO.

The chances of the team or even of any one individual learning something from an attempt to explain the problem(s) may be low, but they are vanishingly small if you just quit without ANY explanation. For all they know you might have disconnected, or hit the button by mistake, or been discovered by your spouse playing when you weren't supposed to, or had an urgent phone call. . .

In my experience, at least 50% of the time I'm able to get some improvement in behavior from discussion with the team. Even if it were only one tenth that often, it would be worth my time to try once or twice because of the chance of generating an improved player for the future.

Part of maximizing the team to me is using my powers effectively; that may mean NOT using SB, for example, on someone if it messes up their positioning, whether due to attacks they want to align precisely (like the Dark scrapper cone) or due to lag on their computer. If its too crippling to the team (sorry, you can't use any rad debuffs because I can't take the lag) I may have to leave, but I'll certainly tell them why because I might team with them again in a couple more months when they get a new computer, say.

Another part of it is that chance to improve tactics, either my own or others, through discussion. After over 2 years of play, I still learn things from other people, and sometimes it only happens when I initiate a conversation about a team problem.

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I can see why they would think that from your replies on the matter as well. You seem to cast the problem not as "costs too high" but as "percieved value to low." In other words the design was fine, but players don't value their "community" enough to contribute to it.

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Boy, your interpretation would not have occurred to me. In classic economic theory, if my "perceived value" of that widget in the store is lower then the price tag on it, its not my fault as the consumer. It may or may not be the stores fault, but its certainly in their interest if they want me as a customer to lower their cost/price until I want to buy it (using "I" in the aggregate here, there are a lot of things in stores that I'm never going to buy regardless of the price ).

I read what he wrote as them wrongly projecting the relative values players would assign to things. Thats a tough thing to get right on something as complex as a base, especially when they were trying to set up a whole new "economy" around it (prestige) at the same time. So far changes have been in a direction that shows they see their mistake, i.e. higher prestige generation and cheaper small sg bases.

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But like I say, it certainly applies to teaming in CoH, where for the most part (in a very small way, Hammy raids and TFs are exceptions) there aren't any grandiose schemes in play except individual players' moment-to-moment fun, which is why that kind of self-interest rules.

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One caveat I'd apply here, some players moment-to-moment fun may come *more* from improving the functioning of the team then purely from faster XPs. They enjoy the "middle M" part of the MMO. This probably comes more from players of defenders and controllers then, say, scrappers, but it does exist, and it provides some reason to take an "explain first" approach rather than just a quit. I still remember a team I turned around with my rad defender close to a year ago when I suggested different tactics to people closing in on 50 who were just charging in on rooms of Carnivals, I wouldn't if I'd just quit the team.

The other reason I don't like a "quit first" approach is that I see it as much like a blind invite to a team. If someone can't take the time to type out one sentence telling me why they want me to join them, or why they are quitting, I'm unlikely to think that they'll take the time to use any tactics if I were to join them, which is usually bad. So I probably won't join them.

I have also seen people have legitimate reasons to decline certain buffs; I have a friend who turns down SB on his dark scrapper, because he is trying to line up his cone attack, but gladly takes it on every other character. There are also those whose graphics cards suffer in bubbles. A bit of chatting beforehand can avoid A thinking B is an moron while B thinks A is overbearing.

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Any TF/SF is doable with any set of AT's as long as you are willing to grind it out! Most recomendations are just to make it easier.

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I don't know if I'd agree completely with this; when our group tried the Eden trial (grav/ff controller, fire/fire blaster, nrg/nrg blaster, dark/dark scrapper, emp) we couldn't scratch the GMs. If it weren't for the "drop in the hole" trick I'd read about recently, we would have stalled right there.

Then we couldn't get through the rock wall. Best we ever did was getting it down to half before we were overwhelmed, even with all of us up against the wall to minimize spawns. Its possible some spawns got knocked through the wall and dropped cairns, though I'm not sure how we'd know that; I know on our second pass against the wall we never even got it down below 90%, though that time our Emp had had to leave for some sleep so no Fortitude to boost damage.

Going to try again with a /kin controller along for some debuffs and slows on the wall spawning, hopefully that will make the difference. I know the couple times I did it with mostly the same group of players, different ATs, but with my rad defender, the GMs and walls were cake.

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That mission computer is pretty empty right now - how about allowing SG's to start all TF's from there provided someone in the SG did it previously (SG badge). Likewise, Police Band missions should be accessible from the SG computer. All of these should be flagged to generate some extra prestige when in SG mode to encourage groups to use their base.

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Ohh, nice idea, and it has the virtue that I'd guess it wouldn't be too hard to program or balance (compared to some things like PvE stuff in bases).

It has the nice feature that it would also give a reason for folks to actually spend a little time in their base, putting together the tf team, and they could work out of there to do selling, rezzing during the tf (sometimes a pain), etc. Right now I just swing through to drop off insps/enhs/salvage and to use the teleporters, though I usually use a coalition base for the latter, since they can afford to have more than 4 zones on the teleporter, unlike us.

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You don't think teleporters are important? O.o

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Nope, not at all.

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Being in a coalition with a sg that had a good teleporter setup for the Numina TF (which requires you to go to EVERY FRICKIN CITY ZONE for a series of hunts) singlehandedly inspired us to finish setting up our groups teleporters. We still use them a lot, my friends and I tend to be on for short sessions together, so travel time may make the difference between getting 2 missions or 3 missions done.

And the ToT inspirations got me to set up bases for a few of our small alt sgs on other servers, because all these lovely medium and large insps were dropping but not needed in most cases for the actual ToT action. So we started storing them for later missions where we might need them (upcoming Statesman tf, for example). Aside from salvage storage for later costume slots. Until Halloween I'd never bothered to learn the base editing system, too busy playing.

Thank goodness for the new "on the cheap" options for small sg bases, that helped a lot.

One other suggestion I'd make for the leader-to-be (which I've seen in another guide, I don't take credit for it), have a mission or two of yours lined up and ready to go to get things moving, and start at a low or medium difficulty so if you end up with a couple people below your level they aren't facing purples, especially at low levels.

I've found very few people who care which missions get done. But they don't want to stand around while the team does a grey hunt in a distant zone in hopes of getting something unlocked to get some XPs from.

A corellary I'd make to rule 3, sometimes its the blasters job to grab aggro.

For example when my rad defender duoed at high levels with a fire blaster, I'd debuff pull a spawn out of a room and around a corner, but it was the blasters job to AoE them before they quite got around the corner for LOS on me. Why? Because there were so many mezzers at high levels, that if one got a shot at me and dropped the debuffs we both died. Whereas if they mezzed my friend the blaster, he had a few seconds to recharge End but no other harm done, I could easily keep up with the incoming damage with debuffs going.

Similarly, the blaster may want to pull aggro off an Emp because the Emps big heals don't affect themselves, but will work on the blaster. The blaster on a FF defenders team has more defense then the FF user does. And so on.

I have even been on a team with a tank and a blaster where the blaster pulled spawns out of rooms with Fireball. This worked because she had a fast retreat with superspeed, and the tank used taunt and auras to peel the incoming spawn off the blaster before they could get to her. It was faster then waiting for the tank to run in and do a "body pull", and if your team is pulling less than spawns, you are probably on too high a difficulty for best mission speed.

These are more advanced tactics, in the sense that you either need to work with folks you play with often enough to coordinate it or do a bit of discussion first and hope your PUG teammate has a clue. I find the latter to be the case reasonably often though.

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I have exactly one toon at levle 50 in these almost three years. I have another who is at level 42, Ember Reign, the Fire/EM tank. I also have quite a few 30+ level toons.

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Hah, that is nothing; a friend of mine has been playing continuously since CoH Beta, and his highest character is 39. He has, I believe, one other character above 30 among his several full servers.

But fun, for him, is coming up with a new character/costume/backstory/sg concept and trying it a bit. So we, his friends, will keep working on him to actually get someone up high enough level in CoH/CoV to do all of the tfs with us, sigh.

One other note on the turrets around the firebases in BB; it can be tough to destroy them all from a standing start in 5 minutes if you are a low damage AT/build.

So use the fact that they don't regenerate. Drop them down to low hit points one at a time, move on to the next, rest and heal as needed, then finish them all off in a burst.

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The Taunt modifier varies by AT, but not by Ranged/Melee. Blasters, Controllers, Defenders, Masterminds, Dominators, and Corruptors are 0.5 * Base. Scrappers are 0.75 * Base. Kheldians are 0.85 * Base. Tankers, Brutes, and Stalkers are 1.0 * Base.

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Hmm, I wonder if thats what they were referring to with that patch note in I7 "AVs/Heroes and Giant Monsters now ignore threat level damage multipliers for different Archetypes. They are still affected by Taunt as before. ". Thus causing them to retarget onto squishies more often.

From playing a rad/rad defender to 50, I'd agree with most of the guide. In particular, playing inside the debuffs is key; if you stand back, some baddies will run to you, some will stay at range, and thus some will be out of the debuffs, and they'll all be annoyed at you because of the debuffs. This is bad. . .

A couple of differences of opinion I'd offer; first, you will probably really want Stamina. Those toggle debuffs use a fair amount, if you are blasting too its still more, and I can't even imagine running the Leadership toggles on top of Choking Cloud (which is a hog by itself) without Stamina, I think you'd actually lose End just standing there. In fact, I'm a bit dubious about needing Leadership at all; Rad Infection gives you a much bigger to hit bonus, Enervating Field gives a much bigger total damage bonus, there are so many other useful rad powers I didn't think Leadership was worth it, unless you plan to PvP a lot.

One other note on Choking Cloud, it will seem disappointing at first, its only got a 50% chance to hit, unenhanceble. But in Rad Infection if you pop Aim, suddenly its locking down the whole crowd around you, which means no more mezzing problems; plus, if you do get ranged mezzed, the hold from it persists a bit, giving you more time to fight or flee. Lingering Radiation is the only other debuff you have that lingers at all past the nanosecond you get mezzed, so don't skimp on that early in a fight either.

Oh, and Accelerate Metabolism shortens the time anyone (including you) spends mezzed while its working, still another benefit of this power.

Has any server tried using Lingering Radiation on mitos to make the clearing go faster? I just wonder if nondamaging AoEs will trigger splitting, and maybe that one would drop them faster via -regen then splits could happen. . .

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I wish we had debuffs that were as good as theirs. I've also got a /TA MM, and his glue arrow isn't impressive compared to the glue grenade, and his flash-bang is practically not noticable. (of course, he's pre-SOs as well, so that could be it)

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We do have debuffs that are as good as theirs, and if you had 6 debuffers all working the crowd over, they'd be neutered as well. See the RSF for an example. Our problem is just that we don't generally HAVE half a dozen debuffers on our team, whereas the mobs often do. They had to tinker with the CoT Earth Thorn casters at one point because their lousy minions were stacking 10-12 quicksands on teams. . .

I have a countersuggestion with MMs, at least on a small team. Go straight to the bank and unpack the henchmen there; the advantage is they pop out in defensive/follow mode, so the MM has full bodyguard as they are equipping them, and with the ambushes coming in the henchmen can be fighting while the ambush is happening instead of just sitting, waiting for upgrades. And some MM sets (traps and to some extend dark) can make the entry door a death zone for the ambushers.

Mayhems (for MMs) are also particularly good places to be able to place some pets on aggressive, so they are always racking up time shooting surroundings, and some on defensive so you have bodyguard against ambushes.

One other note I'd add; Cysts can see through invisibility. So the scouting Shadow Cloak/Superspeed invisible Warshade will trigger it.

Also, stack anything you have to slow recharge on the crystal so it will spawn slower, and make sure folks have a chance to target it before anyone goes in, it starts getting hard to target once it spawns a bunch of nictus.

The final explosion is not debuffed by any -dam debuffs, btw, for reasons of the order the game code processes things in. And it will 1-shot a squishy.

Much of this also applies to the couple of clockwork missions with the Parts Piles, they have much the same issues; high spawn rate, explode on death, etc.

One note about "selling" enhancements when doing a respec which I don't know if you made quite clear; you don't just get the price you would get selling it at the proper store.

You get the price you would PAY to BUY it at that store, i.e. the full price back. So you can upgrade all your SOs by just paying the difference between, say, lvl 35s and lvl 30s, which is about 1/10 the price of buying them from scratch.

I've noticed this kind of thing, at lower levels in particular; if you are *too* good at pulling, the mob may stand there bewildered, like its not sure where to find you. I think they may have "dumber" AI or lower perception assigned to mobs at lower levels to make it a bit easier on folks who are presumably just starting in the game, and aren't very good at pulling yet, don't have many ranged attacks to work with, don't know aggro radius yet, etc.

I haven't noticed recent changes, but its very rare we do any singles pulling with the friends I play with, usually just spawn pulling when they are too close to each other. So we get annoyed when just a single comes.

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Any time you can sell yellow enhancements for full value and you can buy higher level enhancements with the proceeds, it's a good deal. It's best done at the 2 and 7 levels, because then you're getting a full 5 levels of benefit out of your inf.

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Right, instead of shelling out ~$1M for another 5 levels worth of SOs, you are getting another 5 levels for about 1/10 that, the price difference between, say, lvl 25 ones and lvl 30 ones. In fact, when replacement freespecs are coming up (which have been predictable the last few times) go ahead and do this if you are cash short. Its unknown whether the devs will do this again of course.

One type of TO I do think is worth slotting is accuracies, an 8% bonus on a 75% base is still +6%. Many ATs will be putting some slots into "mob hitting" powers in early levels anyway, so having 3 slots with accuracy TOs means near capped chance to hit. Since you are way-pre Stamina at this point, hitting foes more means (1) dying less and (2) having fewer End rest breaks, because you whiff less, both of which mean getting through missions faster.

Actually going out and buying them is another matter, and depends strongly on your tolerance for seeing "miss" messages for quite awhile, its not good financial sense, but still. . .

The selling of badge missions has worked great for my friends and I who started characters on a new server (they are all altoholics and were full up on our original, sigh). You get paid for the effort of doing research on arc threads and collect from the lazy but rich. Just post on the appropriate server forums.

Does anyone know if you can put an acc/mezz into Choking Cloud (normally unenhancable for accuracy) and get some accuracy out of it?

Just a comment in response to the single target build; I struggled less with End at low levels when I respeced into Irradiate in place of single target attacks, because it was so much more efficient against multiple targets. Its more of a tossup solo, depending on what difficulties you play on, but I think the better than breakeven point is something like 3 mobs, which you will fight pretty often (especially on Defeat missions).

The big defense debuff of Irradiate is also nice on teams, and I don't know that I've seen AoE damage draw any aggro I didn't already have on me because of the anchored debuffs. With the great power of those debuffs comes the fact that unlike FF or Emp, say, a bunch of mobs will be gunning for you any time you use your powers. Giving them extra shots at you (especially mezzers) because you aren't taking them down quickly seems bad.

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I'm glancing back over this and realizing that I did mention in my original guide that Stealth had synergy with Warshade powers. Since it's mutually exclusive with Shadow Cloak, it should more properly be Invisibility, not Stealth, which is the power to have. Since this requires two picks and Super Speed only one, the Shadow Cloak/SS combo is probably the better bet unless you simply cannot deal with the increased movement rate caused by Super Speed.

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Yes, you are allowed to pick Stealth, but then if you toggle it on, it toggles off Shadow Cloak, and vice versa.

I've found the superspeed/Shadow Cloak a great combo for scouting for and removing (via the TP Foe power) quants and voids, though sadly on the difficulties my friends and I usually play on the voids are often lts above my level so I can't TP them.

A tactic I've rarely seen mentioned if you want to negate a spawns alpha is turn on Shadow Cloak and Nebulous Form, go into the middle of the baddies, turn off Shadow Cloak, they see you because now you only have stealth level invisibility and shoot but can't hurt you because of Neb Form, THEN you turn off Neb Form, Mire, etc. This could be a good way to soak things like the Clockwork Kings big psi alpha, for example, or even just diffuse a dangerous spawns alpha strike so debuffs can be set up and such.